Lost Souls
by notmanos
Summary: While the group searches for Xander with the help of an old, dead friend, the Organization makes an unwise move that others may pay for.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: The character of Wolverine is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. The characters of Angel & Buffy the Vampire Slayer are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy. Bob and his crew are mine, and if they turn up elsewhere, I'll sic Degei on you._

_N.B.: Takes place post "X2" (I haven't worked up to tackling post X3 yet), and directly after "Revenant"._

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**Lost Souls**

1

At some point, every intelligent person had to grasp that the world was eventually going to end.

It might just be from a personal standpoint - your own death. Or it could be from a wider vista - natural catastrophe, a nuclear mushroom cloud taking out everything, demon hordes from the fifty sixth dimension overwhelming earth. Anything was actually possible, and certainly your own death was an easy bet.

Well, for some.

If you were really smart, you'd read the writing on the wall that most people didn't see, the kind that was written in a type of supernatural lemon juice, and find a way to hedge your bet. Kaya Sagawa prided herself on always seeing the writing on the wall, and always placing bets on a winner.

This man, sitting in front of her desk, was not a winner. He looked very average in all respects - average looks, average weight, average clothes, with only the solidity of his frame giving him anything remarkable. He called himself Oversight, and he was from that clandestine mutant organization known simply as the Organization. She actually admired that name; it was so bland, so generic, it clearly embraced the "banality of evil" concept and ran with it. You had to like people who weren't afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeve.

She was ordered to work with him on this, ordered from the top, but she was adept at reading between the lines, something the Senior Partners valued her for. They said she was a "natural". That was high praise. "You have to understand something, Mr ... Oversight," she explained, smiling at his code name so he didn't note the sarcasm. "Weapon X has made something of a name for himself in the Extra Human strata of Los Angeles." Extra Human, in this case, encompassed demons as well as mutants; in fact, she was just talking about demons at the moment. She had no idea if any mutants beyond his so called "friends" knew he was ever here. "He has, in fact, aligned himself with a major power broker. If you continue to pursue him here, we may not be able to help you."

The man, with his military short reddish brown hair and sun beaten leathery skin, frowned at her, his little blue eyes narrowing even further. "Is Wolfram and Hart backing out of our agreement?"

"Absolutely not. A contract with us is signed in blood." Literally in fact, but she bet this jumped up little despot didn't know that - these oh so clever military men didn't know the first thing about what was actually going on here. They thought they were the smartest, always ahead of the game.

They were wrong.

But oh, wouldn't it break their hearts to find out?

"You simply have to understand we have an existing agreement with this power that we will not violate," she continued smoothly. "And rather than pick between you and violate a contract, we simply choose to stay out of any conflict. But please understand we will be very … displeased if you pursue this."

Oversight leaned forward, and gave her a glare she was sure he thought was menacing. His real name was General Norman Brewer, but he was only a two star general, and the latest cannon fodder to fill the seat at the Organization. They were in big trouble, as their ranks were being decimated from the inside; a mutant named Chameleon was apparently suspected, but had yet to be caught. (Chameleon was also apparently dead, but since when did that stop anyone?) It was also suspected that Weapon X - the oh so macho man handsome and demon scary Logan - was assisting her in some fashion. He wasn't, of course - oh, maybe he did in the beginning, but not after. As hard as it might be for them to believe, a lot of mutants hated the Organization and wanted to see it destroyed, not just Logan. "Our contract with you is a separate issue. Are you trying to dictate who we can go after?"

"Hardly. But you do have to understand that this person is not someone you can wage war against. He's not a person at all, as a matter of fact. I'm sure you've heard of him - Bob?"

"Bob?" he repeated incredulously. He then considered that a moment, clearly wracking his tiny little mind; she was surprised she didn't hear the clatter of pots and pans. "You mean the reality warper? We have telepathic blockers; we can handle him."

She snickered derisively. What an asshole. "No you can't. We have telepathic blockers too, and let me tell you, they do shit to a deity."

He sat up, fixing her with a look that suggested he thought she was full of shit. "Deity? Are you seriously implying that pretty boy fuckhead is god?"

She couldn't help but smile at his ignorance. They were an organization of idiots, weren't they? She shifted in her plush leather chair - so much nicer than the fabric and metal one he was parked in - and subtly opened a drawer on her desk. "There's more than one god, philistine. No wonder your little group is imploding: your intell sucks."

She watched the lethargic muscles in his forearms jump as he clenched his fists, and he scowled so deep it looked like a gash in his leather skin. "My group isn't so afraid of a reality warping fag that we're creating fairy tales about him."

She continued to snicker, shaking her head. "I should leave you to him, you know, but he'd be far too kind. We're not getting in a pointless war with Bob before we're ready, simply because you lost control of one of your weapons and can't seem to get him back. In fact, I think it'd be best if the Organization ceased any activities in the Los Angeles area for the time being. We will not aid you, and without our association, you will find L.A. extremely hostile to you and yours."

"Is that a threat?" he growled.

"No, not at all. It's an epitaph." She pulled the revolver out of her drawer, and Brewer barely had time to register it before she fired, putting a neat little hole in the center of wide, crinkled forehead, the back of his head exploding outward and leaving chunks of brain tissue all over her carpet. Well, she wanted to get some new carpet anyways.

Brewer's body slid off the chair and hit the floor with a dull thud as she replaced her revolver and hit the appropriate button on her intercom. "I need janitorial in here now."

Wolfram and Hart was the model of efficiency. Janitorial was in her office by the time she closed the drawer, retrieved her letter opener, and stood up, smoothing out her skirt. The two man team was made of one big Human named Leonard, and a bronze Frenik demon named Tojo. "I want this man dropped off at a secret military base known as Point Pacific," she instructed them. "Just ask the Locators; they'll give you exact coordinates. "

The two large, thick men nodded, not quite in unison but very close, as she crouched down beside the body. She pushed him over on his back and used the letter opener - actually a sixteenth century Klerik dagger, made of alchemist conjured metal - to cut open his shirt. His chest was saggy, almost concave, and she couldn't help but be disappointed. For all Logan's faults - and they were voluminous - the one thing that would always remain a point in his favor was his chest. Maybe it was a bit too hairy for her tastes, but it appeared so hard you could play racquetball off it - now _that _was a man's chest.

It didn't take her long to carve the letters in his chest; the tip of the dagger was supernaturally sharp, and split the skin as easily as if he was made of butter (a possibility with his physique). He was dead so he didn't bleed, but the blood did well up just a little bit, just enough to make the words stand out on his pale flesh: _Get out. _There was no way the Organization could misunderstand that message.

Once she was finished, she stood aside as Tojo grabbed Brewer and hefted his dead weight like it was nothing, and Leonard held the door open for him. Before they left, she told them, "Send Sanjeev in with the carpet samples, would you?"

At least now she had a good excuse to redecorate.

Only Bob could take the news of a stolen soul as a minor setback.

* * *

While he went off to heal Logan, they discussed possible options. There weren't many.

Willow had to go back to her body and soon, as she could only astral project for so long before her real body would start to suffer. But could they leave Xander's body empty? They were in the hospital, so maybe they could hook him up to life support, keep his body alive until they could get his soul back (_if _they could) , but then Bob came back out and pointed out that would only work if he was comatose, not if he was actually dead or a soulless killing machine.

Angel glanced at his watch, and figured Bob had been in Logan's room for about a minute. But then again, it wouldn't take long, would it? He could just tell him he was fine and had two eyes, and that'd be it. "Mates, you're overlooking the most obvious thing," Bob said, so casual he might as well have been discussing the ball game. "We get a placeholder."

They all exchanged questioning glances before Angel asked, "What?"

"We get another soul to inhabit Xander's body while we find his," Bob explained. At the looks they were all giving him, he added, "What? We get someone who's already passed on to keep him up and ensouled. This buys us oodles of time."

"Define oodles," Marc asked. "I'm just curious what an "oodle" is."

Giles sighed in a manner that suggested he was trying hard not to lose his patience. He sat forward, hands clasped together as though he didn't trust them either. "Bob, the dead inhabiting the living has never worked out well."

Scott, who had been slumping back in his chair in aggressive disbelief, now straightened up. "Wait, you're saying the dead have inhabited the living?"

Giles scowled at the floor, so when he glanced at Scott he didn't glare at him. Obviously he wanted to tolerate his status as a general disbeliever, if only because it essentially made his job easier. "It's rare, but there have been circumstances in which it has happened - specialized circumstances. It's not as common as phony psychics would have you believe."

"If we choose the dead person who's gonna help us out, make it someone we can trust, we should have no problem with it," Bob argued.

Now Angel was starting to lose his patience, although part of that he blamed for being tired, and the other part for having a naturally low tolerance for Bob's bullshit. "And how the hell do we do that? Summoning the dead is tricky enough on its own; trying to summon a specific person is like trying to ride lightning."

Bob gave him one of his big, smart ass grins, the kind that made you really want to haul off and punch him. "Not with me it ain't. I can dimension hop, remember? I also have a death god as a personal friend of mine. I'll admit it won't be super simple, but it shouldn't be much of a hassle. I'll find someone we can trust, and I can make sure they agree to be a part of this." Bob shifted his gaze to Giles. "It'll just be up to you to make it happen on the physical plane."

Giles's shoulders sagged and he glanced down at the floor once more, grimacing in doubt. It would be a big spell, not hard, just tricky. It was always tricky when you opened up a schism between the lands of the dead and the lands of the living; even when working with a specific target, you could let almost anything in during that time you had the door open.

"Okay, but who do we get?" Bren asked.

Bob shrugged. "Somebody you trusted in life who's now dead, who's had serious enough brushes with the supernatural that they could've ended up with an afterlife. It'd be helpful if they were friends, if not of Xander at least of some of us, as that should make things easier to explain, as well as easier for them to let Xander's body go when the time comes."

So they came up with a list of names, which was a grim task, because it just reaffirmed how many friends they had all lost: Cordelia, Anya, Tara, Gunn, Wesley, Fred, Cressida, Jenny. Wesley was considered a front runner, because he could actually help them with this, what with his knowledge of spellcasting and all, and by default that made Tara the second candidate. Angel noticed Scott almost contribute a name, and then stop himself at the last minute. He did it once more before Bob felt he had a big enough pool to choose from. Angel guessed that Scott was going to throw out Jean's name, but either thought better of it, or feared what would happen if Bob did choose her. Bren threw out Matt's name, but then instantly retracted it. "I wouldn't trust him to give up Xander's body," he admitted, with a guilty grimace.

"Is there a reason you guys got a dead pool goin' on?" Logan interjected. He was now standing in the doorway of his hospital room, dressed only in black boxer shorts, still pulling i.v. tubes out of his arms. He ripped open his own skin as he yanked them out, but his skin healed almost instantaneously, before a drop of his blood could fully well on his skin. His skin was its usual color too; Bob must have supercharged his powers, if only temporarily. Also, his eye was back, with only dried blood on his left cheek indicating it had ever been missing.

"Yeah, this," Bob said, and reached out and touched Logan's arm. Logan suddenly reeled away cursing, grabbing his head like he'd just been shot. Marc stood up, but couldn't seem to decide on whether he should look at Bob or Logan. "What did you do?" he demanded.

"Info burst," Bob explained, with the smallest of shrugs. "He can take it. He's about the only Human that can without their brains leaking out their ears."

"Son of a bitch," Logan roared, straightening up and glowering at Bob. "You couldn't even warn me?"

Bob just smiled, a look that would have been dangerous for anyone else to have around an angry Logan. "What, and spoil the surprise?"

Logan looked like he contemplated charging him for about a solid minute, but he ultimately decided against it, probably because it never would have worked. He could only catch Bob by surprise, and there was no way an attack by Logan would be a surprise here.

As Bob laid it all out, it sounded so simple. They'd go back to the bar, where Bob had a handy dimensional gateway all ready to go (Angel already knew about that - the portal through which the PTBs all but ignored him), and Giles could set up the spell around Xander, with Willow's help. As soon as Bob located someone who was willing to help - and he'd communicate this through Logan, because as his avatar they already had a connection (and Logan looked positively thrilled about that) - Giles would initiate the summoning spell. It had to be timed precisely, as this wasn't a spell that could just be left open, and as soon as Willow sensed a presence, she was to leave - end the spell keeping her here - so Xander's body would never have a moment of emptiness. With someone always in it, they didn't have to worry about what would happen to his body - they'd just have to find who took his soul, and see if they could get it back.

Angel had the sneaking suspicion that, as difficult as all of this sounded, _that _would actually be the hard part.

* * *

It was quality irony that only the demons and those who spent a significant amount of time around them or other supernatural beings got to have an afterlife. Bob sometimes wondered if the Powers That Be set that up on purpose.

Demons at death were called back to their home dimensions, since Earth wasn't technically any demons' natural home anymore. But Humans who spent large amounts of time dealing with supernatural energies or entities - spellcasters, witches, Watchers, Slayers, fighters who didn't bother with official names - often ended up in a kind of pocket dimension, where everybody inhabited their own universe without actually being aware of it. If the Humans had made bargains with certain demons or were killed in ritual sacrifices to a being, they could end up in the demons' - or gods' - home dimensions, but that didn't happen a lot. Neither did soul poaching, where a demon or a god would grab a soul and take it back to their dimension, but it had been known to happen. Sometimes people died but remained in an odd kind of limbo, resulting in ghosts and poltergeists, usually people who were furious at their own death, or those who honestly felt they didn't have time to be dead. You had to be quite willful to make it work, which was why Bob was certain that Logan would have been a ghost when he died, except now that he was his avatar, he'd be going to a nice little pocket universe where he could live in peace. Angel probably would have been a ghost too, except he got turned into a vampire. And Helga would probably be the first demon ghost in existence.

Even with Degei's help, navigating through the pocket universe of the Humans wasn't easy. Not only did the landscape shift every time he entered someone's personal perception zone, but there was simply no rhyme or reason to the place. It was basically a living, breathing M.C. Escher sort of universe, a Mobius strip of shifting realities, where a look out a window could give you a dozen different views at once. And he couldn't ask if anyone had seen so and so, because no one else knew anyone else was actually there, beyond who they wanted there.

Bob had crossed about a hundred different dividing lines, a hundred different worlds, before a beautiful African savannah gave way to an equal beautiful beach of golden sand and water as blue as crushed sapphires, under a warm but forgiving sun. There was a large beach house right on the ocean, overlooking what must have been the most expensive view on the California coastline, and Bob was briefly envious. Now that was the way to make the afterlife fun - grab up the good stuff.

About twenty yards down the private beach was a man with coal black hair laying on a beach towel, browning his skin beneath the sun, wearing only blue swim trunks and expensive black sunglasses. He was pale, slight, a small framed man although by no means short, just average in height, and there was something strangely familiar about him. The man heard him walking across the sand and looked up. "Can I help you wit' somethin', mate?" The man raised his sunglasses, and now that Bob could see his face, he recognized him. But the man also recognized him at the same time. "Holy shit - Maximum Bob?"

Bob held up his hand in a sort of static "hi". "Yep. Wow, I didn't expect to see you. How's li … er, things?"

He sat up, perching his sunglasses on the top of his head. He used to be one of the Way Station's best customers. He didn't actually know him - guilt kept him from interacting with him much - but Lia and Helga knew him well enough that he had given each of them his number. (Lia had balled up his number and threw it back in his face, but he knew her well enough not to take it personally.) "Uh, good, good. Y'know, I didn't actually expect anything, but … hey. It's pretty cool here. I guess this is payment for bein' a messenger and all, huh?"

"A safe assumption." He'd do, wouldn't he? He wasn't on their list, but that was probably an oversight.

"So what happened to you? I mean, I thought you were the big bad Belial."

"Uh, yeah … about that? I wasn't really just a Belial."

He cocked his head curiously. "Oh yeah? What else were ya?"

The news would come as a bit of a blow to him, he knew that, but there was no way to soft pedal it. So he simply reverted to his pure energy form for a second, then went back to his fleshy humanoid form, wondering if he'd get it. He never saw Powers in their non-physical guises, had he?

He stared at him for several long moments, and then his mouth started working with no sound coming out. He was so shocked he'd been robbed of his ability to speak. He scrambled to his feet, and finally found his voice. "You were one of them? Shit man, did you do _that _t' me?"

"God no, I'd have never done that to anyone. Believe me, I'm on earth 'cause they kicked me out. I'm not even invited to the family reunions."

He didn't look terribly placated. "Well, couldn't you have helped me somehow?"

Bob spread his hands out helplessly. "No. They'd have smacked me down and given them right back to you. I'm sorry. "

"Shit." He dry washed his face with his hands, and took a moment to compose himself. No matter that it was old news and it didn't matter now; it was still clearly a sore point. "So why are you here? Don't tell me they want me for something again."

"No. Actually, Angel needs your help, if you're willing." He told him what was going on, how the closing of the Hellmouth still gave something an opportunity to steal Xander's soul, and how they needed a soul to step in for his until they could find him. He seemed rather dubious about it at first, but he knew of Xander - Angel and Cordy both having mentioned him once or twice - and he felt kind of bad for the "kid". "Know who took him?"

Bob hated to shrug, but he had to. "There's a couple of suspects, honestly; I'm gonna have to narrow it down."

"I get to come back here afterward, right?"

"Of course. This is only temporary."

He looked around at his dream beach house and perfectly ideal Pacific Ocean, and sighed wistfully. "I'm prob'ly nuts for agreein' to this, but … ah hell. I've always liked a good challenge."

"No you haven't."

"Okay, fine, no, but you could've humored me." After a moment, he nervously scratched his neck, and asked, "So how long have I been … y'know. It seems like I've been here a couple hours. I know Angel had a knack for trouble, but come on, how did he get into so much so fast?"

"Five years."

He seemed visibly taken aback by that figure. His ice blue eyes seemed to stare holes through him for a very long moment, then he got his emotions under control. "Bloody hell. Time really does run differently here, doesn't it?"

That was dimensional travel for you. The time zone variations could be an absolute killer.

* * *

Angel couldn't help but think this was still a very bad idea, but he had nothing to go in its place. Yes, the hospital thing was an unworkable idea, but opening the nether realms and letting someone - and possibly other things - back out was hardly any better. Still, what was left? He was going to abide by Giles's judgment, and he seemed to think he could do this.

While the rest of them returned to the Way Station, Scott decided to go back to his jet to scrounge up a spare pair of glasses, as well as possibly catch a nap. Logan told him he could just take off, he was under no obligation to stay, but he seemed strangely reluctant to do so. Why? He didn't know Xander, and he apparently didn't like the sound of any of this, but he was staying so far. It seemed like he had something on his mind, and Angel wondered if Jean - the woman he almost named but didn't - had something to do with it. Grief could do strange things to a person, and hope was exactly the same.

Helga got Marcus to help her move some tables back, since the bar was currently closed - as soon as they got back Bob cleared the joint and declared it "closed for spellcasting" - and then Helga helped Giles draw up the chalk pentagram on the floor. Willow offered to help, but Helga just seemed to be on a roll. Willow put down the protective circle of salt and runes beyond the pentagram. They were doing everything they could to prevent the release of something other than the person they were aiming for.

Angel sat at the bar with Logan and Marcus - Logan was already on his second beer - and they had caught Logan up on what he'd missed, because he could hardly remember anything after reaching the sixth floor of the building. He didn't realize he'd lost an eye, but when told about it, he vaguely recalled it, although he didn't know how he lost it in the first place. The memory loss bothered him more than the fact that he'd lost his eye, but that was typical somehow. When it came to his own physical well being he had long ago stopped giving a damn, thanks to his healing factor. He'd heal or he wouldn't, but it was of no concern to him.

While the spell was being done, Willow - well, Xander - had to lay in the middle of the pentagram, and she admitted she felt really weird about it. Also, Bob needed to get the floor swept more often. Logan paused suddenly, beer bottle half raised to his lips, and then said, "Bob's got someone."

"Already?" Angel replied, suddenly overcome with jittery nerves. Who did he find? Who was he going to have to face? To be perfectly honest, he wasn't sure he could deal with someone he failed coming back for a second round. He rather hoped Bob had found Tara, because he didn't know her at all, and he felt no sense of guilt at the thought of her death. But that was such a selfish thought that he was embarrassed by it.

Giles initiated the spell, and Angel could only watch with his heart in his mouth, worried that this wouldn't work, and equally terrified that it would.

It wasn't a long ceremony, just an energy draining one. The candles set in the gap between the pentagram and the sacred circle flared, their flames guttering and jumping up to three times their normal height as Giles continued chanting in old Latin, and Angel could feel … something. It was hard to explain what it was; a sensation of otherworldliness, not wrong or right, just … incorrect. Something that shouldn't have been, a tear between realities that seemed to offend existence itself.

Laying on the floor, Xander gasped and opened his eyes wide, as if the transition itself was unpleasant (and having been forcibly ensouled himself, he knew it wasn't exactly a fun experience), and Giles completed the spell, the candle flames shrinking and then dying completely, letting off tiny trails of wispy smoke.

"You guys are good," Bob said, appearing suddenly behind the bar. "I missed it already, didn't I?"

Giles leaned against the wall, sweat pouring off his face, as he tried to catch his breath. Xander sat up, gave his new body a visual once over, and then stood up slightly uneasily. "Now here I thought, from your description, he was a spindly geek. He's actually built better than me. I feel cheated."

It was still Xander's voice of course, but now it had the faintest trace of an accent. Accents were personal, of course, they just went with the speaker, the vocal chords had absolutely nothing to do with it. And while Angel easily placed the slight lilt, it took him a moment to pair it with anyone on the list.

That was because they weren't on the list. But they should have been.

Xander stared straight at him, and said, "Well Angel, looks like I'm gonna help you save some people's asses again. Let's hope I'm better at this time than I was last time, huh?"

Angel felt cold right down to the tips of his toes. He was glad he was already sitting, because he was pretty sure if he was standing his knees would have given way. "Doyle?" he gasped.


	2. Chapter 2

2

"Who's Doyle?" Naomi asked.

Xander - Doyle - stepped forward and gave her a small salute. "I am. Pleased to meet ya, darlin'." He looked around at everyone, at all the new faces, and asked, "Gonna introduce me?"

Angel knew he was talking to him, but he couldn't quite work up the ability to speak yet. Bob kindly stepped in. "That is Giles, ex-Watcher and spellcaster extraordinaire; this is Logan, my avatar, and a mutant with an accelerated healing factor and big ass metal claws in his hands; that's Marcus, a mutant with infrared vision and poison glands under his fingernails; over at the table is Bren, a Human/Brachen demon hybrid - doesn't that sound familiar? - who also has an eidetic memory; next to him is Kier, his vampire boyfriend; beside him is Saddiq, a mutant with impenetrable skin and a knowledge of nearly every fighting style known to mankind; and that lovely lady is Naomi, a mutant with the power to control and channel all electricity. You know me and Hel already."

"Nice to have you back, Francis," Helga said, giving him a faint smile.

"Nice to be back," Doyle admitted, looking around the bar. "Haven't redecorated, huh?"

"Why mess with the classics?" Bob replied.

Logan scowled, disliking feeling lost. He nudged his arm, and said, "So you used to work with this guy?"

Angel found it easier to talk to him, why he wasn't sure; perhaps because his death wasn't on his conscience. "Yeah, he was my first … business partner."

"You could call it that," Doyle admitted. "I got the visions that nearly split my head open, and he went off and beat the shit out of the bad guys. Hey, can I have a beer?"

"You got the visions?" Logan asked him curiously. "I thought Cordy got those."

Oh no. Angel groaned internally as Doyle gave him a startled look. "Huh?"

Angel steeled himself, gripping the edge of the bar like his life depended on it. "Before you, uh, died, when you kissed Cordy, you apparently passed on the visions to her."

"Oh shit. Really? I didn't know it worked that way," Doyle admitted, sidling up on a bar stool. "I hope she forgives me. Hey, where is she anyways?"

There it was, the question he'd been fearing. Angel just stared at him, the apology visible on his face, and Doyle - Xander - paled. "Oh hell no," he groaned, clearly distraught. "Not her."

Angel didn't know what to tell him, so he said nothing. Helga put a can of Guinness in front of Doyle and he took it with a grateful nod, hunching over it like it was a warming fire. Grief came down heavily on both of them, and the silence was thick and awkward.

To break it, Marcus said, "By the way, I ain't with 'em. I'm freelance."

Doyle glanced down the bar at him and seemed relieved that he had given him something else to think about. "Yeah, actually I was wondering how you all fit in the office."

If Doyle was good to run with this, Angel was too. "Technically only Naomi, Bren, Giles, and Xander -" Bren cleared his throat, and Angel fought not to roll his eyes. " - and Kier work with me. Saddiq and Logan are with a mutant group called the X-Men, and Marcus is a mercenary."

"I don't need no steekin' badges," Marc said, lifting his beer in a mock toast.

"The X-Men?" Doyle repeated, looking towards Logan. "What does that mean?"

He shrugged. "Fuck if I know."

"It's a reference to our mutant X genes I believe," Saddiq offered. "But it does sound a little … strange."

"Fucked up," Logan countered.

Saddiq dipped his head in acknowledgment of that. Angel didn't know if Logan's and Saddiq's relationship would allow Saddiq to contradict him. Of course Logan wouldn't care if he did, but Saddiq still had that deference to authority trait going on, as much as Logan tried to encourage him to stop it. It didn't help that Saddiq saw Logan as a kind of mentor, and was generally accepted as his protégé. Angel wasn't sure why that was since Saddiq apparently learned all his fighting skills before he was rescued by Bob from Rhajan, but he figured it simply came down to the fact that few could fight at Saddiq's level (and after seeing him in action, that was easy to believe; he fought like an android designed for that purpose alone), and Logan could at least spar with him for longer than twenty seconds. He was probably one of a mere handful. "So you're like what, superheroes?" Doyle asked, trying to figure it out.

Logan grunted in ill humor. "I ain't no fucking superhero."

Both Bren and Saddiq stared in disbelief at Logan's back, and Marcus elbowed him lightly. "Fuck you, man. Of _course_ you're a superhero - who else keeps fighting after they lose an eye?"

"A crazy person," Logan shot back, with not a hint of facetiousness.

Doyle looked genuinely confused. "You lost an eye?"

"I gave it back to him," Bob happily volunteered. "But he'd have probably grown it back eventually on his own anyways. Healing factor, you know."

Doyle stared at Logan. "You can grow back eyes?"

Logan shrugged, clearly ashamed, and stared down into his beer. Doyle caught Angel's eyes, and lifted his eyebrows in a manner that Angel recognized; it was essentially Doyle's tacit way of saying "_Holy shit". _Angel grimaced, and still wasn't sure what to say. He was glad to have Doyle back, but he felt no less weird about any of this.

Doyle had a good swig of his beer, and they all sat in silence for a moment with their beverages of choice. Giles's cell phone went off - Willow checking in to let him know she got okay, and to check that everything was okay here - and that was about it. He heard a soft patter outside, and figured it was finally raining after so much thick cloud cover.

Finally, Doyle asked, "So what's the next move?"

"I check out a couple of suspects," Bob said. He then looked at all of them, frowning. "Why don't you guys call it a day and go home? You all look exhausted. I doubt we'll be able to get anything immediately anyways."

Although it was met with hesitant noises, it was sound advice - they had been up for far too many hours, and they'd spent a good segment of it fighting. "I'm okay," Doyle said. "I just got here."

"I ain't tired," Logan grumbled.

Marcus clicked his tongue. "No, I bet not. Bob supercharged you; you'll probably be awake for days."

"Does this Xander guy live somewhere?" Doyle wondered, going through Xander's pockets. He pulled out his wallet, cell phone, a couple of scraps of paper, and paused at finding Xander's flask. He unscrewed the cap and took a sniff of what was in it.

That was a good question. Angel suddenly realized he had no idea where Xander lived, save for somewhere downtown. It was Naomi who said, "Yeah, he lives on the West side, in a place called the El Greco." They all looked at her, which made her a bit defensive. "I gave him a lift once."

"You know where that is?" The funny thing is, Bob asked that of Logan.

Logan scowled at him, but he thought about a moment and shrugged. "It's a few blocks down from Rags's, I think. Why?"

Bob gave him that grin again, that one that made you want to punch him. "You can take Doyle there while the others take a break."

"Why me?"

"Because you're awake."

"So are you."

"Ah, but I have to go talk to some gods. So you're it, mate."

Logan grumbled under his breath, but seemed to accept it. Doyle simply asked Bob, "You talk to gods a lot?"

Bob held out his hand flat and waggled it slightly side to side, a "sort of" hand gesture. "When I hafta. Most don't like me very much."

"So does that mean they have no sense of fashion," Marc wondered. "Or too much sense of fashion?"

Bob snickered. "You're just lucky I'm not a wrathful god."

Logan could have argued it, but seemed oddly resigned to it, and Doyle was just happy to have a beer again. Although he couldn't say why, Angel almost had a sense that Bob was up to something, that he was putting Logan and Doyle together for a reason. But why?

He was almost afraid to find out.

--------------------

The funny thing was a soul change could cause a change in smell. Logan didn't know how or why - logically it made no sense at all - but Xander now smelled a bit different. It was a slight change, but just noticeable. Logan wondered what it meant for a moment, then gave up, figuring it didn't matter.

On the walk towards Xander's end of town, Doyle gave him the short version of his history with Angel, and it was slightly less bloody than he expected. He told him a very abbreviated version of how he came to meet Angel, and skipped the X-Men altogether.

It was drizzling more than genuinely raining, but the water was warm and smelled very faintly of the pollution that made up the smog around the L.A. basin, so Logan didn't find it very pleasant. Doyle seemed like a nice enough guy, but he also seemed to know an awful lot of people on the seedier side of the demon divide. Bob for one; Rags for another. "He still hangin' out with that demon who's like a big pile of phlegm?"

"Thrak? Yeah; they're almost inseparable."

"What the hell is up with that? I mean, seriously. They ain't datin' or nothin', are they?"

That was a good question as well as a frightening one. Wow, he had no idea. Could they even date? Did Thrak have any … er … wait - did he even have a gender? They called him a him, but there was no signs if Thrak was a he or a she; Thrak may have even been a gender they didn't have a Human term for, not to mention having the necessary equipment. Oh man, If he thought about this too much, he was sure he'd have nightmares. "I have no idea." He shuddered as he suddenly pictured it. He had to have Bob burn that image out of his brain.

Once they got past Sunset the traffic thinned appreciably, to the point that they were often the only people on the sidewalk. He wasn't sure if the paltry excuse for rain had scared some people off or if it was just the time of day, but there wasn't a lot of street traffic either.

Perhaps that's how come he noticed it.

Logan paused to light a cigar out of the rain, under the awning of a coffee shop, and Doyle peered in. "Didn't this used to be a sex shop?"

"Why the hell you askin' me? I ain't from around here."

He shaded his eyes and glanced in the window anew, finally asking, "What're you lookin' at? I don't see any good looking birds in there. Or birds at all. Is this a gay coffee shop?"

Logan felt like shoving him, but that would have attracted too much attention. "Someone in a black Explorer is following us. I'm tryin' to figure out who the fuck they are."

Doyle turned around and looked out at the street. "What, you mean th -"

Logan grabbed him and spun him around violently. "Don't look at them!"

Doyle broke out of his grip. "Why the hell not? We want to know who the fuck they are, don't we?"

The Explorer must have noticed, because it suddenly turned down a side street, and the last thing Logan saw of it was the red flare of its tail lights. Now he really wanted to punch Doyle, but he was in Xander's body, and it would be unfair to Xander. Wait a minute - did he give a fuck about Xander? "Yeah, asshole, but I wanted to commit 'em to a less public area where I could grab one of 'em and make 'em talk," Logan snapped. "Not make 'em rabbit like they just did."

"Well sorry, tough guy," he said, sounding deeply insincere. He glanced across the street, clearly trying to spot more possible tails. "Who'd be followin' ya, anyways?"

Logan managed to get his anger under control, but just barely, and shook his head. "I dunno. There's a couple of possibilities, none of 'em good."

"Oh terrific. What, you indebted to the mob or something?"

He grunted. "I wish. That'd be easy to take care of."

Doyle stared at him for a moment, then paled slightly as he realized he was being serious. "Holy shit. Who's after you?"

Logan shrugged, and started off down the street again. "What day is it, Wednesday? Could be the Triad."

Doyle followed him, but with obvious reluctance. "The Triad! You mean those Chinese gangster assholes? How the fuck did you get in bad with the Triad? Please tell me you're joking."

"Okay."

"Now I know that's a lie. Why the hell did Bob send you to take me anywhere? Is this more of teachin' me a lesson?"

"I thought he was teaching me a lesson," he shot back, finding it difficult to keep his cigar going in this constant drizzle.

Doyle kept several steps behind him for several blocks, which was fine by him. Who was it that were following him and why? The problem was there was so many possibilities to choose from. Of course, what if they weren't following him - what if they were following Xander? He could have gotten himself into something he hadn't mentioned to the rest of them - the problem was, Doyle wouldn't know. He was a passenger in his body, and he didn't have access to the main hard drive (so to speak).

The El Greco was a small apartment building that had once been a fairly grand, sizable house. It was done in an old Spanish style, like many Hollywood houses of the '40's and 50's, with genuine slate tiles and a stucco exterior that was for some reason painted an unattractive brick red, with a small garden of low maintenance succulent plants wrapped around the front, an accent sized eucalyptus tree the centerpiece. A small concrete walk led to the front doors, where no security locks were in place - anyone could enter the El Greco, as the only locked doors belonged to the apartments within. That was fairly rare nowadays; most buildings made you buzz in before you could even get in the building.

Doyle had looked at the address on Xander's driver's license and determined that he lived in the first unit (marked for some reason as 101), but he had to flipped through Xander's key ring, as none of the keys were marked. And he had a lot of fucking keys.

The interior hallway was larger than Logan had anticipated, the walls cool white stucco with the floor bearing red carpet that had probably seen better years, and the corridor had a faint odor of tamales and microwave popcorn that someone must have cooked last night. The doors were heavy wood, stained to a fine finish (perhaps to give some sense of glamour), but there was an elegantly wasted aura about the place, like it was an old actor's home that fell into decay just about the time as his career did, and he kept slopping paint on it (and himself) so you didn't notice how shabby everything actually was. Xander also had a deadbolt, which was in general a good security move, but it meant that Doyle had another key to find.

While he was going through the ring, a woman emerged from around the corner of the hall, a slightly plump but pretty Latina with glossy black hair that spilled to her shoulders, and an eyebrow ring that glittered golden in the filtered light. "Hey Xander," she said, pasting on a phony smile as she gave Logan a wary glance.

Logan subtly nudged Doyle, because he had clearly forgotten his name was Xander for the meantime. He looked up, and said, "Oh, hi. How you doin'?"

Her dark eyes regarded him gravely. "What's with the accent?"

Doyle forced a chuckle. "Oh, just fuckin' around, you know. I heard chicks dug accents, so I was playin' with that one," he replied, in an American accent so flat it almost sounded like a parody of one. "So what d'ya think?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and continued to give Logan a minor variation of the stink eye. Clearly she didn't trust him. "I think ... Colin Farrell you're not."

Doyle shrugged, smiling faintly. "Can't blame a guy for tryin', can ya?"

"No, I suppose not. See you later," she said, putting the emphasis on later as she continued glaring holes in Logan's head. What, did she think he was robbing him or something?

"Yeah, manana," Doyle said, turning back to his key search. As soon as she was gone, Doyle asked, "Who's Colin Farrell?"

"Some drunk actor from Ireland."

"Hey, I resent the implication that all Irish are drunkards. I'll have you know some of us can stay sober for two, three hours at a time." He slid a key in the doorknob lock, and the tumblers clicked. "Jackpot." He tried to push the door open, but it didn't move; the deadbolt was engaged. "Damn it. Can't you just slice it off or somethin'?"

"I could, but I ain't buying him a new lock."

Doyle cursed him under his breath, and started searching for the deadbolt key.

Somewhere between five and ten minutes later, Doyle got the entire door open and they entered Xander's apartment. Logan wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it really wasn't this. The apartments were laid out in a kind of loft style, with other rooms implied by entryways, but the only true inside door belonging to the bathroom. The living room, kitchenette, and bedroom were separated only by implied borders, although the bed itself was in a little raised alcove; not a Murphy bed, just a bed that would have been considered a loft bed if it was five feet higher off the ground. The bed wasn't made, there was an empty pizza box on a low slung coffee table decorated with mail and a few magazines, and a couple of cups and a plate were in the sink, but it was otherwise remarkably neat for a bachelor's apartment. The main curtains, of a heavy dark red fabric that probably helped keep some of the heat at bay, were open, but the gauzy ivory panels beneath were closed, so there was no view out the front window. It was stuffy in here in spite of the dreary day, so Logan went over and turned on the air conditioner.

"Do you feel like we just broke and entered too?" Doyle wondered, going over to Xander's refrigerator.

Logan shrugged, taking a tour of his living room. He had a brown leather sofa and an overstuffed burgundy armchair that had seen better days, and a flat screen television that looked fairly new on a rather older entertainment stand. His DVD player was one of the older variety too, as was his stereo. Wire racks beside it held CDs (lots of alt-rock, some emo) and some DVDs (mostly contemporary films with hot females in them, action films, and classic monster and sci-fi films - if he had porn, he didn't display it), The only art on his walls was a Matrix movie poster, but there were some smaller framed photos on and around the entertainment center. He recognized Willow, as well as the blonde girl that was with Giles at Wesley's funeral (Buffy, right?), as well as Cordelia in a much older photo, but occasionally there was someone he didn't recognize. Perhaps family members, or a name from that dead pool he didn't recognize: Tara, Anya, Jenny. There was also a particle board bookcase, the kind you could buy really cheap, and it had a messy pile of mostly paperbacks and graphic novels, as well as a few magazines. Nothing here said anything particularly remarkable about him, except perhaps a leaning towards being a science fiction geek (most of his paperbacks were sci-fi, and he had a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Stargate SG-1 season box set).

Doyle let out a low whistle, and said, "I have hit the mother lode."

Logan wandered over to the fridge, which Doyle was staring into, and looked over his shoulder. Xander's small fridge contained many a fast food and take out carton, enough ketchup, mustard, and hot sauce packets to build your own restaurant, and many cans of beer, some bottles of whiskey, rum, vodka, and wine, all with varying liquid levels. Doyle patted his (Xander's) stomach, and said, "Could this boy have a drinkin' problem?"

"I dunno; I'm not sure he's Irish."

He turned and wagged a finger at him sternly. "Oi, only I can make Irish jokes. You're not Irish, are ya? So keep your cakehole shut."

"My name's Logan."

Doyle stared at him in confusion. "Yeah, so?"

"Ain't that Irish?"

That puzzled him, and they both pondered it for a good minute. "Well, it kinda sounds Irish … but you're not from Ireland, are ya?"

"Don't think so. I'm Canadian."

"There you go - America's gay cousin. If you're Irish, it's buried under all those hockey pucks."

"I can still beat you to a pulp."

Doyle clicked his tongue, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and kicked the door shut. "Touchy. So you Canadians are super sensitive, huh?"

Logan glared at him. He knew that Doyle was just being a smart ass, but he still felt like socking him. Still, he just weighed the odds of Angel and Bob getting mad at him if he severely damaged Xander's body as Doyle wandered off, sitting on the couch and glancing at some of Xander's mail before grabbing the remote. "I wonder if he has cable."

"You're being rather casual, aren't you? That ain't your body; this isn't your place."

Doyle rolled his eyes and clucked in exasperation. "I _know _that. But I'm doin' you guys a favor. You know where I was before all this? I was at this big beach house where everything I wanted just appeared as soon as I wanted them. If it wasn't precisely Heaven, it was close enough. And it's weird to actually be in a body again. I mean I _thought _ I had been in a body all this time, but apparently I wasn't, and it's … weird to feel gravity, aches and pains that aren't even mine. And he's not half-demon, is he? He's got some good muscles, I'll give 'im that, but I still don't know what this body can do, what it can take." He took a swig of the beer, and after letting it settle, he admitted, "I gotta bad feelin' about all this. Even if Bob can find this guy's soul, how they gonna get it back in 'im?"

Those were actually good question, and some were ones Logan had been pondering. How were they going to play this? There was one thing he did know, one answer he could give him. "Bob will find his soul; if it's out there somewhere, Bob'll track it down."

Doyle nodded reluctantly. "Guess so. There's nothin' Maximum Bob can't get, right? Or so that used to be what they said. I guess things might've changed in five years."

"Not Bob. He just gets stranger."

"I bet." Doyle settled back, started flipping through channels with the remote - Xander did apparently have cable - and after a moment, Doyle exclaimed, "There's a Food Network now?"

Logan continued looking through Xander's apartment, and he didn't know why, until he realized that he was still thinking about that Explorer that trailed them down Sunset. Was it following him? Odds were yes, of course it was following him - how many people had he pissed off in this town alone? It could hardly be following Xander, could it? Or could it? How well did any of them know this guy? What if he had problems he hadn't shared with others - such as his secret drinking. (Which Logan knew about, because he could smell it on him, but he hadn't realized it was supposed to be secret.) What if those people weren't following him, but following Xander? Why?

That's what he was looking for: the why. Something that might indicate that Xander had a problem, or was in trouble. He wasn't sure why really, except he hated to be the constant center of bad things. It would be so nice if someone else had a turn at the wheel. But he had to face the fact that it was most likely someone after him, someone aware he was here and still nursing a grudge. How could he narrow down the list of suspects?

There was a small side table behind the couch where his phone was, along with a few scribbles on various pieces of papers. Some of them were phone numbers, others reminders of chores or grocery lists, one was a reminder to "call Haley". But nothing was incriminating; nothing stood out as a warning flag or a clue. It was the random detritus of a normal life.

He had an odd feeling, which made him glance up and look around. What was wrong? It took him a moment, but he realized it was out on the road; he'd been peripherally aware of a car engine changing its pitch in an odd way. Car problems? He started to approach the window to look out, but that's when someone outside opened fire, spraying bullets straight into Logan's chest.


	3. Chapter 3

Doyle exclaimed "Shit!" and hit the floor, while the impact of the bullets threw Logan back until he stumbled into the kitchen counter. Since dropping to the floor seemed like a good idea, he did, and crawled across the floor towards the shattered window. He felt the pain of the bullets quite clearly - he was sure at least one of his lungs had been punctured - but Marc had been right about Bob "supercharging" his powers, and clearly that was still in effect, as he barely registered the pain before a frantic warmth spread over him like a sudden fever. By the time he got to the remains of the window, he'd heard the car drive off with a fantastic screech of tires on pavement, but he still managed to catch a glimpse of the rear of a black Explorer. Damn it - how did it follow them after ditching them? Did they know where Xander lived?

"Holy goddamn shit," Doyle said, warily looking over the couch. "Was that the Triad?"

"I don't think so. They'd have gotten closer and made sure the job was done right. Besides, they know bullets won't keep me down for long - or they should know that anyways. Maybe if there boss was an idiot, they wouldn't." He considered going after them, but figured those assholes had too big of a lead on him already.

"What do you mean bullets won't keep you down for long?" Doyle now stood up, figuring the danger had passed, and when he looked at him he did a slight double take. He supposed it was due to the bullet holes now in his shirt, although there was precious little blood considering he took a half dozen bullets. His healing factor was really raring to go today. "What - what the hell are you doing up? You've been shot!"

He shrugged. "Ain't the first time."

Doyle's startled look became a suspicious glare. "And you're not a demon?"

Logan scowled. "No. Just a freak." Although it was probably easier to go out the door, he climbed out the shattered window frame and walked out towards the street, wondering if he could find some clues as to the mystery shooters. Now there were people glancing out at the street, probably looking for a corpse or a film crew - or both (it was L.A. after all). All Logan found was bullet casings and fresh tire tracks on the road (they really lost their tire tread hauling ass out of here), but he also found a recently discarded cigarette butt, which he sniffed. He smelled the tobacco, sure, but he also smelled a hint of something else. It was a faint, dry scent, almost … reptilian.

Okay, how did this make sense? Why were demons after him? Only belatedly did he add the "this time".

3

Giles knew he was sleeping, but that this wasn't exactly a dream.

When you first became a Watcher, you were warned that there were demons that could use alternate methods of communications, ones not open to normal Humans. Now demons on this plane were usually restricted in power usage to some degree, but ones on other planes were wildly powerful, and sometimes in ways there was no defense against. You did the best you could to protect yourself, although you were always warned never to contact those demons, and if you ever did, well, expect the worst. Expect it to haunt you when you least expected it.

So while he wasn't too surprised to see Hantu Kubor invading his sleeping mind, he didn't like it. He'd contacted one of the Hantu Kubor when he was searching for a way to destroy the Erebus Sliver, and while he was inside a protection circle, the problem was it could only protect you so much. He was somewhere dark, and he could hear the click of its claws on the floor as the Hantu Kubor scuttled towards him on its six arms/legs like a humanoid spider, its thirty eyes on thin stalks arranged around its head like a living crown. The eyes themselves glowed like a fire in the distance. "You did a stupid thing, Watcher," it said in its rattling, grave voice. "You opened a door."

"You saw, or you know?" The Hantu Kubor - a group organism, none with individual names - were the janitors of the underworld, or perhaps the correct term was vultures. They ate the refuse of other worlds, and most of that refuse was some form of carrion. In spite of their low position on the demonic totem pole, they knew everything there was to know; they were so ignored by other demons that they were free to come and go at will, free to listen, free to watch. They simply didn't rate as entities, and even if you did get pissy and kill one, it was too late - as a group entity, what one saw they all saw; what one heard they all heard. They were a master intelligence network, but dangerous to use, simply because as soon as one knew you, _all_ knew you. That seemed harmless, but it wasn't - no demon that was virtually omniscient and immortal could ever be considered harmless.

"All the same," it growled. "You didn't shut it soon enough."

"Nothing came out, besides the soul we were after." But even as he said it, he knew he couldn't be one hundred percent sure about that.

The clicking of its claws was almost lost in its chuckle, which sounded remarkably similar. "Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there."

Giles felt a coldness in his bowels that was never ever a good sign. "What? Something came out with Doyle? What kind of thing?"

It continued growling low in its throat, a sound like a rough engine idling in the distance. "You made a mistake. You let _it _out."

Giles woke up in bed, his comforter knotted around him like a rope keeping him tied to the mattress. His heart was pounding double time inside his chest, thudding against his rib cage until it felt like it was making his entire chest resonate like a struck bell. It could have simply been the Hantu Kubor taunting him - they weren't above such things. But he couldn't count on that.

He knew opening the doorway, no matter how briefly, was dangerous. If something happened as a result, he only had himself to blame.

---------------------------------

A truly troubling thing, one that said oodles (that word again) about Doyle's familiarity with the demon dark side, was his knowledge of hit squads.

There weren't too many of them that he knew about - well, five years ago - but narrowing things down to Freniks and Ressiks, the reptilian demons, seemingly helped a bit. Doyle made some calls - many of which were to disconnected numbers - but finally got a hit. So to speak.

Wolfram and Hart had a Ressik/Frenik extermination squad, but Logan was disinclined to think it was them for the simple fact that the evil bastard lawyers already knew that regular bullets would do bupkis to him; they'd send a squad with explosive rounds, adamantium bullets, something with real hurting power. According to Doyle's contact, Charlie Tripod (he didn't want to know), there were your random Ressik/Frenic mercenaries, but he only knew of one entire unit of them not working for the evil bastard lawyers, and that was a group known as the Vrenick Brothers. They generally hired themselves out to films (!), but occasionally during slow periods they did do a bit of freelance mercenary work, although they weren't all that cheap, and they were rather showy, but not all that good. (Which sounded like the shooters to a tee.) Charlie wasn't sure how to get a hold of them, but heard they were represented by a demon agent known as Gold.

"I know that name," he admitted, searching his memory for it.

Doyle shrugged. "Well, yeah. It's L.A. - there's a lot of Golds. And Greens and Weintraubs and Steins of various kinds … not to be racist, but there ya go."

"Oh shit - Legolas."

Doyle stared at him warily, like he was afraid he was having a psychotic break. "What?"

"This fucking … what did Giles call it - Ahtabi demon? Somethin' like that. It's gold skinned and skinny, with elf ears and a real Hollywood attitude. Lives in Los Feliz."

"Ritzy." He paused. "Is it still?"

"Yeah, guess so. I couldn't afford to live there." Logan scowled to himself, and grunted in annoyance. "Guess I gotta go pay him a visit."

"You may wanna change your clothes man. You might get the cops called on ya."

A glance down confirmed enough blood and bullet holes to get him at least a double take - and in a wealthy place like Los Feliz, almost a guarantee of being surrounded by a swat team within two minutes. He was forced to dig through Xander's wardrobe until he found a shirt that fit him - a t-shirt thankfully, but one advertising a Mexican restaurant that translated into "Fried Donkey Balls". It must have been a gag shirt; Xander probably had it for that very reason. He made a mental note to kick his ass about this if they ever got Xander back in his body again.

He put in a call to Thrak against his better judgment, but Los Feliz was a ways away, and he figured he might need a quick getaway. Thrak screeched up to the curb in his bright chartreuse cab in what seemed to be record time, and Logan was a bit surprised that Thrak hadn't pulled up on the lawn itself. The guy - thing - was a fucking maniac.

When he headed out the door, Doyle followed him, so he stopped and turned around fast enough that Doyle was forced to back up. "Where the hell are you goin'?"

"With you."

"The fuck you are. First of all, you gotta stay here in case Bob finds out something."

"He said it would probably take a while," Doyle argued.

"And what about that busted window, huh? When guys come in to steal Xander's stuff, you gonna buy him new stuff?"

That got him. He looked back in with a heavy sigh, running his hand through his hair. "They were shootin' at you, not me. This should be your job."

"But it's not. So nail a board over there or something. I'll be back soon."

He heard Doyle throw a mild curse his way as he left, but Logan honestly didn't care. It was bad enough he was visiting an agent - a demon agent on top of that - while wearing some other guy's "fried donkey balls" t-shirt. If he had to haul around a guy who was leasing another guy's body, it would just be too much.

Getting in the cab was something of an act of bravery all by itself, especially since Thrak had a new orange scented air freshener that knocked his head back like a punch. He cranked the window down and stuck his head out it, breathing through his mouth so the L.A. smog didn't deliver the final one-two punch that would leave him unconscious, and told Thrak where he wanted to go. He (?) peeled out like their ass was on fire and the cops were on their tail, and while Logan clung to the back seat for dear life, he briefly considered asking Thrak if he was a he, she, or an other, and if Rags was more than just a drinking buddy … but then he realized he actually didn't care Also, he was surely better off not knowing the answers to any of these things.

Although Thrak was easily the world's scariest driver - in more ways than one - there was something he had going for him: he could get everywhere faster. He didn't wait in traffic, he didn't obey speed limits, or marked roads, or anything else that most drivers adhered to; Thrak seemed to have no concerns about the state of his vehicle, himself, or his passengers. This was another one of those times that Logan was glad he had a healing factor.

Somehow Thrak got him to Gold's place without getting in a major accident (although it was possible he'd caused several in his wake), and Gold's place was a modern yet slightly rococo style mansion on palatial, well manicured grounds, behind large wrought iron gates that wouldn't have looked out of place at an elaborate cemetery. Logan left the taxi and walked up to the front gate, buzzing the house only to see what response that would get. He could cut through the security fence with no problem at all, but he just wanted to see if the Vrenick Brothers would come out or not. Gold didn't strike him as a bad guy - a Hollywood phony, sure, but not exceedingly evil - but then again, he had overseen death matches and worked for a super evil guy with great ease, like this was just another gig. He had the morality of a rabid mongoose; this guy was capable of anything.

After a moment, a female voice replied, "Si?"

Oh, right, Carlotta, his "help", the one who was a great cook. If shit was going to go down, he wanted her out of the way. Just 'cause she worked for a sleazeball didn't make her any less of a civilian; hell, she thought he was a Human with deformed ears. In Spanish, he replied, "Carlotta, it's Logan. I was here once, as a guest of Mr. Gold's?"

There was a long pause. "Oh, yes, yes, the one with the sideburns."

Well, it was either that or "_the guy with the hair" _or "_the guy with the claws"; _he was always described in the exact same ways. "Yeah. He told me I could drop by any time I needed to talk to him, and right now I do. Is he in?"

There was another pause as she thought about it, but it was briefer this time. Did she suspect it was bullshit? Probably. But she liked him - he complimented her on her cooking, and was comfortable speaking her language with her. That had seemed to endear him to her when he was here. "Yes, he's by the pool. I'll let him know you're here." With that, there was an electronic buzz, and the gate unlatched with an audible click.

He signaled to Thrak to wait for him, but he had no idea if Thrak noticed - he was jiggling along with a U2 song on the radio, like the bass notes were vibrating him like a Jello mold in an earthquake, and he had a horrible feeling that Thrak was about to start singing in a minute. Wasn't that lethal, or at least potentially so? In that case, he hoped Gold sent some guards out here. Death by horrible singing seemed like a really funny way for thugs to go out.

If the Vrenicks were here, it was news to Carlotta - which was probably always the case, because she never seemed to notice any of the demon activities that Gold got up to. All she knew was he was a slightly strange looking man who treated her kindly and paid her well; if he said certain parts of the house were off limits, and didn't answer certain questions, why would she care? Gold had made it worth her while not to be curious. So he sniffed the air as he walked around the side of the mansion, heading for the backyard pool, but all he was smelling was recently applied fertilizer, wisps of herbicide and car exhaust, a hint of smog from the hills and the spray of a cat (Gold had a cat? Or was it a trespasser?), and the closer he got to the pool the more the chlorine stung his nasal passages, to the point of making his eyes water. But no Ressiks or Freniks; not out here, not outside, not unless they doused themselves in fertilizer or chlorine.

It seemed to take him forever to walk around the house - there should have been a law about how much square footage a person was allowed, especially demon agents - but finally he saw the silver shimmer of sunlight off water, and heard Gold, apparently talking on his ubiquitous cell phone. "- eighty four. Look, I know she's a darling, but she couldn't attract flies if she was road kill. We need hip, we need now, we need someone without a 'tude and a coke habit and obvious anorexia. Think you can fill that order? Uh huh, that's what I thought. Call me when you get back from Mauritius." Logan heard the snap of his phone as he shut it, and then he exclaimed, "Man of my dreams! Where have you been? You know I had people looking for you, and it was like you dropped off the face of the planet."

Gold was still willowy, long and almost eerily thin, his skin hue an oddly delicate gold. He was lolling in a lounge chair beside the pool, wearing only jade green Speedos that contrasted with his skin nicely, designer black sunglasses hiding his eyes and ironically highlighting his elfin, pointed ears. His hair was a bit longer this time, and in the direct sunlight it glittered like white gold spun into straw. How could Carlotta think this guy was Human? Oh well, maybe anyone was willing to believe anything as long as the checks were big enough.

Logan stopped where he was, keeping the Olympic length, Italian tiled swimming pool between him and the sylph like demon. "What d'ya mean you had people lookin' for me?"

Gold clicked his tongue impatiently. "I told you, I could get you a three picture deal at Fox with two phone calls. Hollywood needs a new action hero, and you darling are it. I have seen you in action, and let me tell you, the insurance companies will plotz when they discover you could do your own stunts and never get hurt … permanently. I'm sorry I didn't tape your pit performance, 'cause I know very well I could have launched a bidding war for you on that alone."

He glowered at him. More of this movie shit. "I already told you, I ain't interested. And, hey, Brezekarian, or whatever the fuck he called himself, remember him? I believe you had something to do with a near apocalyptic event."

"Oh, _that_," Gold said dismissively, waving his hand like he was trying to slap away a fly. "Honey, that was nothing personal. In this business, if you want to survive, you back a winner. And you're the winner in that scenario, aren't you? Mea culpa, lesson learned, I can get you a cut of the gross and a piece of the back end."

Logan shook his head in disbelief. Unbelievable. "You're Satan, aren't you?"

Although that question was sarcastic, Gold chuckled nervously. "Sense of humor. Good! That'll serve you well. I got this script last week, Tarantino's developing it, Sam Jackson's already on board, and it has a role that was written for you. I know where Quentin's drinking tonight, so why don't we go and I'll introduce you to him; I know he'll just _love_ you. Tell him about your ultimate fighting experiences - might want to skip the whole demon thing, I don't know if he's in on it or what - and for the coup de gras, show him your claws. I know for a fact he will go completely batshit over those - hell, he'll probably try and get his own set. You'll be a lock for sure."

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Sam Jackson might be there."

He ground his teeth together, wondering where Gold's bodyguards were. Wouldn't it have been smart to have some around? He knew what he could do, he'd seen him fight and slaughter killer demons by the dozens … so where was his protection? Was it this slick huckster bullshit? It didn't work on him before, so why was Gold relying on it to save his ass now? Gold was a lot of things - a fucking laundry list of things - but he was not an idiot.

(Samuel L. Jackson might be there? Well, he seemed like he might be a good guy to hang out with. He was great in Pulp Fiction …)

Logan shook his head again, banishing that thought train from his head. God, L.A. just poisoned you, didn't it? "Why did you send the Vrenicks after me? You know you can't kill me with plain bullets. Are you telling me the hit was just some lame ass stunt to get me to come here so you could try and con me into signing with you? Jesus fucking Christ, I'm gonna -"

"Whoa, cut, cut," he said, sitting up waving his hands as if in surrender. He used his hands a lot when he talked; how very agent of him. "Sent the Vrenicks after you? Do you mean the Vrenick Brothers? I did no such thing. Why would I do something like that? Hell, if I thought the Vrenicks could have found you I'd have had them kidnap you and bring you here. Why shoot you?"

He seemed honestly perplexed and startled by the accusation, but he could have been lying; he didn't know this breed of demon well enough to judge. But then again, kidnapping _was_ more of Gold's style - the first time he came here, he was brought via mystical teleportation kidnapping. "You know where the Vrenicks are now?"

Gold snorted derisively. "Sitting on their fat, scaly asses. I haven't gotten them work in months. Apparently savagely beating a P.A. gets around the studios, you know?"

If they were freelancing, which months without work might lead them to do, Gold was actually - and possibly for the first and only time in his life - innocent.

Yet he didn't trust it - he couldn't. Even if Gold had no part in this, the fact that the Vrenicks were clients of his could be no coincidence.

Somebody knew; somebody did this on purpose.

Now the only question was who and why, and what the point of this fucking thing was.

--------------------------------------------

Giles still wasn't used to Southern Californian weather. And it was funny, because he was hardly new to this State. He'd lived so long in Sunnydale that going back to milder, grayer English weather had been a surprise at first. He had had to reacclimatize to what had been the very thing he was most accustomed to. It was a terrible perversity that he assumed was some kind of penance he had to pay. Now he was back in the pit of sunny hell, and he wondered why he'd come back.

But he did have some friends here, ones that helped him find this bungalow on a quiet suburban enclave that looked like it was far from L.A., what with its tree lined streets and neat, fairly sizable patches of ground for each quaint home, but was in fact just a couple of miles from the downtown area. Story had it this used to be a studio back lot that was sold once the studio went bankrupt, but Giles honestly didn't know and didn't care. It was much nicer than living in the concrete, demon infested jungle of the city.

He absently jingled his car keys as he pondered where to go first. Well, he had to go to the Way Station - he had to ask Bob if he sensed something else coming through. You'd think he'd have mentioned it, but maybe not; he was sadly perverse. Then he could go from there. If something dangerous got out they'd have to identify it and trap it, with the only problem being they would be relying on Bob for help. Oh, why couldn't gods just be nice, agreeable sorts? It'd make things so much easier.

He was so lost in his thoughts he was startled by a neatly groomed young man in khaki pants and a black t-shirt, who had walked into his driveway and now stood beside his car. "Are you Rupert Giles?" he wondered. His face was young and well scrubbed, but was there something wrong with him?

Giles stared at him a moment, taking a step back, and realized what the problem was: his eyes. They were simply dead, as hard and flat as river rocks. "Who wants to know?"

He heard a noise behind him, a soft scuff, but he didn't even have time to turn around as an arm suddenly crushed his throat, and a sudden, sharp pain stabbed through his back. He lost consciousness before he could see if his assailant was a demon or not.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Kaya Sagawa was just looking over her newly installed carpet when her twelve o'clock arrived, right on time for once. She had Jeff send him on in, even though she was still moving the chairs back into position. "You're gay," she said as he came in. "What do you think of this color?"

Kier glared at her with open contempt as he shut the door behind him. "What a welcome. Why didn't you just say "Redecorate my office, fag"?"

"Now, come on - I'm evil, not insensitive. What do you think?"

The pretty boy vampire sighed heavily and looked at the floor in a rather gloomy manner. The carpet was an admittedly odd kind of deep reddish purple, almost a post mortem lividity color, which is what attracted her to it in the first place. It almost seemed to say "Prepare to die", and that was exactly the kind of message she wanted to send. After a moment, he said, "This is like a combination of eggplant and a cheap whore's nail polish."

"Is that a compliment?"

He faked a sigh. "Well, you won't be able to see bloodstains in it."

"See, was that so hard?" She took a seat behind her desk, and said, "Speaking of whores, how are you?"

He fixed her with a hard stare, and made an obscene hand gesture at her as he reluctantly took his seat. "Jeeze, you guys think so highly of me. I wonder why I have reservations."

"Now, don't be that way. We've all been impressed by your ability to integrate into Angel's little creep gang. Hollywood missed a major asset when you got turned. So, I know the shutting down of the Hellmouth went well."

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I guess. Logan lost an eye, but Bob gave it back to him. Xander got his soul stolen somehow, and now everyone's looking for it, although I'm not sure why - the guy was kinda annoying. But I'm worried about Bob."

"Why? He can take care of himself."

"No, not like that. He's gotta know what I am, who I'm working for - he knows everything, right? - but he doesn't say anything. He never pulls the trigger. Why doesn't he? It's starting to bug the shit out of me."

"That's probably why he doesn't : it bugs the shit out of you. Bob is nothing if not predictably irritating."

Kier scratched his face nervously, or perhaps his smattering of chic stubble was getting to him. He was wearing black jeans and boots, a shabby chic retro logo t-shirt, and a black leather jacket that was probably brand new even though it looked "vintage". Kier was quite a find for the company, and a timely one. Most vamps who worked bite clubs had some screwed up idea of morality or safety - they somehow thought they wouldn't be Slayer or demon hunter bait if they were providing a "service" and weren't actually killing someone - but Kier was desperate to improve his lot in unlife, and he liked the idea of becoming notorious. Also he thought Bren was cute, so seducing him would not present any physical or philosophical problems. "Look, they don't trust me, I know it. All Bob needs to do is give them a reason, and I'm dust."

"You weren't sent to deliberately sabotage them, Kier, just to spy. Bob knows that, and that in itself is relatively harmless. We could spy on them in a dozen different ways; he probably feels this is the least invasive way."

Kier stared at her with his movie star blue eyes. Yes, he would have been a fabulous actor. "You _planned_ this around Bob knowing about it?"

She shrugged a single shoulder. An undignified gesture but an apt one. "We had to. He's been around them a lot lately."

Kier didn't look pleased. "You couldn't have warned me?"

"How would that have helped?"

"I would have known not to be shitting bricks over it!" He was so angry it looked like he considered getting out of his chair, but reconsidered it on the strength of her glare. "I ain't exactly used to dealing with gods, you know."

She scoffed. "You really shouldn't think of Bob that way. He's a fallen god, one who was so pathetic his fellow divines kicked him down to the minor leagues. He may seem overly powerful, but you have to keep in mind that if he were a decent god, he'd be much worse. Speaking of which, do you know where Bob planned to look for Xander's soul?"

Kier seemed peeved at the topic switch judging from the way his eyes narrowed, but after a moment he shrugged, and offered, "He was going to bother some gods. He mentioned Hecate, but no one else by name. Why?"

"It's always amusing to hear who Bob's pissing off this week. If he didn't have friends in high places, he'd have been a cosmic smear a long time ago." Which was still something they hoped would happen, even though someone had a crazy theory that the fall of the Powers predicted in the Scroll of Amethus would be precipitated by Bob, but she doubted it. After all, hadn't he tried to overthrow them before? And look how well that worked. Bob was an asshole, but he wasn't generally stupid.

Unlike poor Kier here. Okay, maybe he wasn't stupid so much as a bit naïve. After all, did he really think they'd tell him their entire plan when he was around Bob so often?

Poor kid. Sometimes she almost felt sorry for him.

-------------------

Scott entered the mansion, and wondered where everyone was.

It was eerie when it was empty, and the only time he could remember it being perfectly empty was when the Professor first brought him back here. Oh, Jean was here, but at the time she was away; it was just the two of them for the first three days. Just rambling around this big old house like ghosts waiting for new tenants.

There was a strange feeling when a building was empty; you could sense the emptiness, feel the nothingness around you, and it always made your skin crawl just a little. He almost said hello, but then didn't, because he had a sudden, inexplicable fear: what if someone answered him?

But the farther he went down the hall, the more he realized he heard … something. He wasn't as alone as he initially thought. Was there noise coming from Logan's room? It sounded like voices … a t.v., a radio?

He was just down from it, maybe a door and a half away, when Logan's door opened, and he stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn't Logan that came out of his room but Jean, wearing nothing but a purple silk robe he'd never seen before. As she shut the door behind her he caught a glimpse of someone sprawled on the bed. It was Logan, wasn't it?

He felt a cold, numb shock down to his toes, and he wasn't sure where to begin. She was alive? She was cheating on him with … him? It was too much to grasp at once, and he just stood there, paralyzed by indecision.

It was Jean who spoke first. "Yes, that was always your problem, wasn't it? You always hesitated. I hated that, you know. Just for once I wanted you to act on impulse, without pondering the consequences or considering all the angles." She tied the robe's sash tight around her waist. Her long red hair was messy, falling around her face in a careless drape, and her lips looked swollen, almost bruised. There was a look in her eye he had never seen before - it was hard, almost cruel, a look so sharp he could almost feel its edges. "It was boring, Scott. With a capital B. At least Logan isn't boring. He's a man, a real man - what're you?"

His heart pounded against his ribcage, seemed to echo in his ears, and he had the sudden, panicked thought that Logan was supposed to be in Los Angeles.

Wait a minute - wasn't _he_ still in Los Angeles? When did he get back?

Jean scowled at him. "Now that's not fair, is it? Pay attention to me, freak boy."

Scott took a step back, and while he was deeply confused, he was quietly relieved. "You're not Jean." He turned, but when he did, two huge doors that had never existed before slammed shut in his face.

"And you're not going anywhere," she said, her voice almost in his ear.

He spun around, expecting to collide with her, but it didn't happen. She was close to him, but not as close as she had sounded. He considered using his powers against her, but that's all he could do - consider. They were gone. "Who are you? What's the meaning of this?" Was it someone in his head? Or something else? Scott was pretty sure he knew the feeling of telepathy, and he wasn't sensing that right now, but a subtle telepath could elude him.

Jean - the imposter Jean - gave him a wicked little smile, curved up like a scythe. "Does there have to be a meaning to everything? I mean, if I just wanted to rip your heart out, why not have a little fun doing it? Like so." She punched her fist through his chest, he could feel the rock hard solidity of her fist as it tore through the wall of his flesh and muscle and bone, and it seemed impossible. He kept telling himself it wasn't real, it wasn't happening, even as he felt something inside him tear, and she yanked her fist out, holding up a bloody organ for him to see. His heart? That wasn't possible.

"It's possible if I say it's possible," she snarled. She squeezed the organ and blood burst out of it like a balloon filled with colored water. It splattered on the walls and even him, dripping down his face in warm, viscous trails. She tossed the heart aside like a crumpled can. "There. Shouldn't you be dying now?"

He wanted to tell her that simply wasn't possible; it was an illusion - a powerful one, yes - but just that, and it couldn't hurt him. But he couldn't open his mouth to form the words, and he felt a curiously hollow coldness inside of him, a weakness that diffused through his body like cream in coffee. He could feel it drifting down, pulling him along with it.

Even as he hit the floor, he kept telling himself this wasn't possible. So he wasn't completely sure why he felt like he was dying.

-----------

Now admittedly he didn't know any of these new people, and first impressions - especially under circumstances like these - could always be a bit off. But Doyle didn't get why Angel would work with a guy like Logan.

A "superhero" huh? How many superheroes had the Triad after them? How many were blasé about a hit squad coming after him? Now Doyle knew he wasn't exactly a squeaky clean representative of humanity either, but this seem to be stretching credulity to the breaking point. And he was an avatar? Seriously? It was hard to believe. Doyle figured if he ever got Bob's power, the world would officially end about twenty minutes later.

And where the hell was he supposed to find a "piece of wood" in a loft apartment? Okay, it was a lot nicer than his last apartment, but there wasn't a bit of scrap wood to be found. Doyle had left Xander's apartment temporarily to scope out the apartment complex itself, but he found no scrap wood anywhere. This sucked. So what else could he use to block the window? A sheet would do it, but it hardly offered any protection from someone breaking in. Then again, a board wasn't so great for that either.

He was walking back to Xander's apartment when he encountered a solidly built, tall women with bottle blonde hair cut so severely short it almost looked like a military buzz. She was wearing dark sunglasses and black pants and a navy blue blazer that almost looked like a one piece uniform. "Xander Harris?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he replied curiously. She had a pretty good body, but he couldn't tell if she was attractive or not; she needed to take off the sunglasses.

"I was given a package to give to you," she said, pulling a thick Manila envelope out from behind her back. Oh shit, was she a process server? Well, why did he care? The papers weren't actually for him.

He approached her, holding out his hand for the envelope, but that's when everything went wrong.

She grabbed his wrist and jabbed forward with the envelope, which was clearly covering something - a weapon? He didn't want to hit a woman - that was always an unpleasant aspect of evil fighting - but he yanked his arm free before she could stab him and grabbed her arm, shoving her hard into the wall and running past her …

… straight into the flattened palm of a man built like a refrigerator. It hit him square between the eyes, just missing his nose, but the blow was hard enough to send him falling on his ass. He shook his head as stars exploded in front of his eyes, trying to clear his vision. Before he could get back to his feet, he smelled the woman's perfume behind him, and felt a sudden, sharp electric shock that ran down his spine and traveled through his body like a bolt of lightening.

Holy shit. He hadn't even had Xander's body a whole day, and already he'd gotten it damaged.

----------

Gold took off his cell phone headset and tossed it across the room in disgust. He probably meant it to hit the far wall, but it fell short and bounced on the couch before coming to rest on the carpet. "Those bastards aren't answering their pagers either! I am seriously pissed off. No one ignores my calls - especially so called clients of mine!"

Logan had wondered if this was all an act on his behalf, but as he watched the slender demon pace back and forth in his overly opulent "lounge", he was growing convinced that Gold's upset was genuine. It helped that he seemed to be twitching, and his scent had changed, becoming a bit like kelp mixed with fresh spearmint (his kind of demon must have had some plant in his background - nothing seemed out of line for demons). He was also scowling so violently his always pointy chin suddenly seemed sharp enough to cut. "Why would they ignore your calls?"

Gold pivoted swiftly on his heels and faced him with a volcanic glare that made him really look demonic. "Because they're stupid fucking assholes who will never work in this town again!"

Wasn't that dramatic? And yet Logan was sure he meant it. He finished off the exotic beer that Carlotta had been nice enough to bring him, savoring its clean taste, before asking, "You know where they live though, right?"

"Of _course_ I do. Where would I send the checks when they actually get work?" He ran a hand through his golden, almost fiber optic hair, and sighed heavily. "Let me throw something on, then we'll go down there. If they're not there, I know a couple places where they might be."

"We?"

"You think you're the only one who wants to kick their ass? Besides, I want to see them turn inside out when I rip up their contract in front of them."

"That's figurative, right?"

Gold's look was so cold he felt almost frostbitten. "No."

That was probably a good reason why you shouldn't sign up with a demon agent.

Gold didn't take long to get dressed, although he still managed to come down looking like a few thousand dollars, wearing a short sleeved shirt that was the color of toasted almonds and looked like it was made of chamois, while his pants were loose, cool dark blue linen that seemed expertly fitted. They probably were. Logan realized he probably looked like his bodyguard or something, which was a disturbing thought.

Although he was sure that Gold's anger was genuine, he wasn't completely convinced that this wasn't some kind of set up. But he couldn't help it - Logan was curious to see who was setting him up and why. Gold might be an effective hostage if things came down again, but since he'd been put in harm's way by whoever was doing this, it's possible he was simply cannon fodder and would be nothing but a burden. Still, after seeing Gold's hissy fit, he bet the demon could bring something to the table … even if it was just the home number of the president of Paramount Studios.

Gold's driver had the day off, so Logan convinced him they should just use Thrak as their driver, and with a limit of options, Gold reluctantly went along with it. He regretted it within two minutes, but over the screeching tires and honking of other cars, Thrak couldn't hear Gold screaming.

The Vrenick Brothers lived near Topanga, on a small patch of land hundreds of yards out from their nearest neighbors, and blocked from view by an eight foot high wooden fence. When he got Gold to stop screaming at Thrak's driving - he took to covering his eyes with his hands and cringing in the corner of the back seat - Gold told him there were five brothers, although only two were actually related (Vlad and Hud; Gold claimed those were their real names, although Vrenick wasn't). They mostly did "gunfire related" pyrotechnics and stunts, but even before the beating incident they weren't in major demand. Gold admitted he was thinking of dropping them, but hadn't as a favor to Vlad and Hud's dad. Gold didn't mention who that was.

There was a front gate that was clearly locked, and Thrak gargled at them. Logan didn't get it, but Gold understood what language it was - or at least faked it - because he said, "Oh, just ram the fucking thing."

Thrak didn't ask twice, he simply stamped on the gas and sent the car crashing through the fence before they could adequately brace themselves, throwing them against their seat belts as he easily broke the gates. From the sound of it, his cab also got a little damage itself, but not as bad as the fence.

Thrak came to a spinning halt on the front lawn, slamming on the brakes suddenly and sending the back end of the car slewing around, chewing up grass and dirt in the process, and throwing them up against the car doors. The cab rocked on its shocks for a moment, and Gold stared at him, his eyes as wide as saucers. "Is he a stunt driver?"

Logan figured he was, but not professionally; just an amateur, random stunt driver. Gold tried to keep his dignity as much as he could, but he was so desperate to get out of the cab he almost fell out the back door, and Logan really couldn't blame him. He was glad he hadn't eaten this morning, as he was pretty sure he'd be close to barfing it all up. Having Thrak drive you around was a bit like being inside a paint shaker.

Once he got out of the car, Logan knew they were too late. He could smell it on the air, beneath the exhaust and turned up earth, and Gold must have noticed he was sniffing, because he said rather anxiously, "What?"

"I know why they didn't answer your phone calls. " Logan walked up to the front porch and shoved the door open, as it was not only unlocked but a bit ajar. He winced as the smell of blood and death hit him like a fist, and he heard Gold gasp as he came up behind him and looked over his shoulder at the Vrenick's living room.

Black, swampy blood was splattered everywhere, painting the walls a murky, sewer treatment color. Part of a Frenik's head was on the coffee table, while half an arm was balanced precariously on a tipped over chair, and some random guts were scattered about the carpet like clots of discarded meat dragged out of a garbage can by a hungry dog.

Gold made a noise like he was trying to keep his gorge from rising and turned away before asking, in a strangled voice, "Who could have done this?"

Although the identity of the culprits was still up in the air, Logan thought he knew the answer to the question: whoever hired them in the first place. Now that was going to be the real puzzler.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Kier only realized he'd grabbed Bren's ipod after he left the apartment, but at least Bren's musical tastes weren't too bad. Actually listening to his ipod helped him understand that Brendan liked eerie music . (Was this the soundtrack of Bren's life?) Everything in his play list had something slightly unsettling about it, from the inhuman coldness of Ladytron to the deliberate weirdness of Mike Patton and Vidna Obmana to the low key, almost lethargic eeriness of the new Thom Yorke album. He didn't have the whole thing, just a couple songs that were so quiet they almost didn't exist, and he sung like he was half asleep. Kier honestly thought it sucked, but then he realized the music made him feel itchy, like something loud was just going to happen (but never did), and he became aware that the lyrics were surprisingly bitter and angry, but sung in a way that suggested boredom; he was so disappointed he couldn't even work up a good head of steam. For some reason that just seemed unsettling; kind of like you could hear his sanity draining away.

Perhaps it also encapsulated his life right now. Wolfram and Hart were lying to him, and he knew it, but he wasn't sure what to do about it. Was there anything he could actually do? He knew going in that being lawyers affiliated with some collective demon god thing they had but a casual relationship with reality, and they only cared about their specific bottom line. They were a good career move, and he thought they were the only game in town (this was before he knew about Bob), but now that he knew better he wondered if he'd made a big mistake. If they were planning to screw him over or sacrifice him in some play, there was no reason for him to have any loyalty to them. Well, okay, they could gut him in a mystical manner, or do something even worse to him, but that was the risks you took, right?

He wondered what would happen if he threw himself on Bob's mercy. Bob could protect him from Wolfram and Hart, right? You'd think so the way they were so afraid of him. But would he want to? Yes he'd been lying to them, yes he was technically playing for the enemy … but people fucked up, right? Angel had fucked up; Logan for damn sure had fucked up; and he got a sense Helga had probably fucked up, but far be it from him to say it to her face. (She might rip his face off.)

He supposed that Bob would expect him to be contrite or something. Was he? Well … no, he was afraid for his skin. But if he was to be totally honest, he liked Bren more than he expected to. It was cool to have a younger fellow demon to kick around with, he was a good looking guy who didn't seem to know he was good looking (the best kind), he wasn't bad in bed, and his musical taste wasn't bad. _Weird_, but not bad. It was kind of nice to be with someone who didn't expect a lot from him. Bren didn't trust him, he knew that, but it didn't seem to hinder their relationship in any way. Kier honestly didn't want to know what that meant.

Yet he had come to the decision that he couldn't kill him. Oh, he _could _kill him, even though Bren thought he was the big bad demon hunter, but when it came down to it he didn't _want _to. He had no problem with the idea of dusting Angel - he was kind of a prick, wasn't he? - and Xander was annoying; Giles seemed a bit self-important at times; Naomi he just didn't know well enough to care about either way. But he knew he couldn't kill Bren; he liked him. Did that make him a bad vampire or a bad double agent?

He walked into Bren's apartment, glad that Bren kept the windows blacked out on his behalf, but he'd barely had the door open when he felt that something was wrong. There was a presence that shouldn't be, something otherworldly that made his skin crawl.

Kier threw the door open, bracing himself, but nothing attacked him. In fact, the room seemed empty except for Bren sprawled asleep on the bed as he'd left him. Only … was the mattress pressed down a bit more than normal? As he came in he saw it was, and that Bren sounded like he was having trouble breathing.

And no wonder. There was something on top of him.

It wasn't exactly a shape, but a suggestion of one. A suggestion of a large, humped beast that was all but invisible, but still distorted the air in a manner that indicated there was something there that shouldn't be, but was nevertheless. A ghost? He thought you couldn't see those … but hey, he was a vampire. He wasn't supposed to exist. "Hey!" he shouted, to see if something happened, but nothing did. Bren didn't even wake up. Okay, now he knew that wasn't right.

He ran to attack the thing, but it moved then, a blur of air, and something that felt like a tentacle made of stone smashed him in the chest, sending him flying into the kitchenette, where he slammed into the fridge so hard it felt like his spine had snapped. He sunk down to the floor, chest aching, and he snarled at the thing, vamping out involuntarily. It was between him and Bren, but at least it was off Bren. "You're gonna pay for that, sunshine."

The dull ache in his chest suddenly became cold, then queerly hot; it was like he'd been hit with something so cold he'd gotten instantaneous frostbite. But since he was a vampire, he'd recover; it took more than that to put down the undead. He climbed up to his feet and braced himself to pounce, but the thing took off through the open door in a cool gust of a movement, like it was nothing but a stray breeze.

What the fuck was that thing? He briefly considered going after it, but then he looked at Bren still splayed on the bed, and figured the fucking thing had better run and not stop until it reached the county line.

He scrambled on to the bed, and asked, "Bren? You okay? Bren?" He shook him, and his skin was distressingly cool to the touch. His skin tone was far too pale as well, the vague teal undertone of his Brachen side almost visible beneath nearly translucent skin. Wow, this wasn't good. "Brendan, come on, wake up!" he shouted, shaking him violently, morphing back to Human guise so he didn't startle him further.

Finally Bren roused, coughing weakly, and his eyes just barely fluttered open. "What, what? I'm tryin' to sleep here …"

"I need to get you to a hospital or something. You've been attacked." Bren was wearing nothing but boxer shorts, most of the covers kicked off, so he was able to do a quick visual search of his body for wounds. He found pale marks on his shoulder, but that was just from him. (Sometimes when they had sex, he couldn't help but bite him; the urge was too great to ignore. But he never drank his blood, because it was way too sour; kind of like an unripe pineapple. He could tolerate a sip, but after that he couldn't stand it. Bren didn't seem to mind at all; actually he seemed to get into it. One switch to his Brachen form and back and the fang marks usually disappeared.)

Bren snorted in disbelief and rolled over onto his side. "So you were having a nightmare too, huh?"

"I'm not kidding, Bren. C'mon, we gotta get you up." He grabbed him and hauled him up to a sitting position, aware that there was now a discoloration forming on Bren's chest, a sort of formless red blotch that seemed to cover his torso from collarbone to hip. Was that some kind of reaction to the attack? Reaction to the cold that thing gave off? Or something else? Oh shit, he had to get him to the demon hospital - maybe he had a flesh eating thing, or was incubating demon young or something. Holy fuck, what _was_ that thing?

Bren tried to shrug him off, but was too weak to do so. His ruby eyes fixed on him, and he slurred, "What the fuck is your deal? 'm tired, okay?"

"You don't remember being attacked?"

The look he gave him was glazed and non-comprehending. "Huh? What're you talking about? I had a nightmare, but -"

"It was in your dream?"

"What?

Kier heard a noise that made him look towards the open door, and standing there were two men, big enough to block out almost all the florescent light in the hallway. "Brendan Chambers?" One of them said, in a voice as deep as well water. "You need to come with us."

These men smelled like gun oil and cigarettes, and Kier didn't trust them for a second. He stood up, and asked, "Are you Wolfram and Hart?"

The men exchanged a glance that he could only see because his vampire vision allowed him to see sharply in dim light, and that look told him no even as the one who spoke before said, "Yes, we are."

"Bullshit," he snapped. "Who do you work for? Why are you here?"

As he approached them, he saw them reaching under their matching black jackets, and Kier didn't give them a chance to pull out their weapons. He vamped out once more and moved, using his superior speed to get the drop on them even though he was right in front of them. He grabbed one man's arm and twisted it in a direction it wasn't meant to bend, the bone snapping like it was made of spun sugar, as he kicked the other man straight in the face, feeling his nose shatter beneath the heel of his boot.

Both screamed, the one kicked in the face fell backwards and hit the floor, while the one with the broken arm just stumble back and stared at his yellow eyes and distorted, plentiful teeth with a look of stunned wonderment. "Mutant!" he shouted, glancing briefly towards the hallway. "Unknown mutant -"

Kier planted a kick in his gut that silenced him, and grabbed him by the hair so he could look the fake Wolfram and Hart goon straight in the face. "I ain't a mutant, you fucking moron. I'm a vampire. And you picked the worst day to visit, because I'm pissed off." With that, he rammed his knee in his face, knocking him out and rendering his ugly face a broken mess. Good.

He _was_ angry - he was fucking pissed off that that thing had hurt Bren and gotten away, and he was pissed at Wolfram and Hart for thinking he was an idiot, and he was angry at himself for being so easily manipulated by a bunch of evil fucks who thought of him as nothing but a pawn to move across a board and sacrifice at a whim. And most of all, he was just angry that someone was attacking the one good thing in his life. No one, absolutely no one, fucked with his boyfriend.

There were others in the corridor, two men and a woman, and while they had weapons out (boxy black things that reeked of ozone and crackled even louder than tasers), it wasn't enough. He decided to show them what a vampire could do by moving as quickly as he could, running up walls like the laws of gravity had suddenly been revoked and jumping over them, grabbing one from behind as he came back down to the floor and snapping his neck with a single savage twist, tossing his still twitching corpse into the woman advancing on him. The other jabbed his fancy taser at him, but Kier saw it coming and let him lunge forward, slipping beside him and then stepping behind him, sinking his fangs into his neck and turning his head, ripping out a huge chunk of his neck and getting a mouthful of his blood in the process. He spit out the flesh as the man grabbed in his bleeding neck in horror, and attempted to stagger away, falling against the wall as his blood pumped out with every beat of his heart. "Think I'm a mutant now?" he wondered, licking the blood off his lips. "I'm a predator, and you creatures are my prey."

Gunshots rang out, and Kier felt them punch through his body, slam through his useless lungs and even more pointless spleen, and he spun to face the woman who had shot him. He faced her straight on and smiled, a gesture that made her hand tighten nervously around her gun even before he held his arms out, making himself a bigger and easier target. "Okay, bitch, you wanna live? Who do you work for? You have three seconds to tell me before I rip your heart out."

She reached a slightly shaking hand to her ear, which is how Kier realized they were communicating by earpiece radios. "Abort," she said in a low register that didn't quite hide the tremor in her voice. "Inhuman hostile, abort mission."

She tried to run back towards the elevator, but Kier was on her even as she turned and fired another shot at him. It went wide because he had pounced on her, grabbing her gun arm, and then he jammed her own nine millimeter under her pretty chin and made her pull the trigger, blowing the top of her head off in a truly nasty display that geysered blood and brain matter all over the ceiling and near wall. They'd never get her out of the carpet.

On his way back to the apartment, he flipped over the man with the broken neck and grabbed the small black earpiece out of his ear. He wasn't going to put it in - eww, gross! Someone else's earwax was on it! - but he slipped it in his pocket. Maybe it might mean something to someone else.

Bren was still on the bed, but he was sitting on the edge, looking at the two unconscious men in his apartment with a dazed, almost drugged look. "What the hell was this?" he wondered. "Am I still dreaming?"

"Yes, exactly," Kier said, morphing back to Human face and grabbing his shoulder, hauling him up to his unsteady feet. "And we have to get out of here before the Earth opens up and swallows us whole."

"Really?" he asked, allowing Kier to drape his arm over his shoulders. Bren leaned against him drunkenly, almost as boneless as a puppet, and he realized he was struggling to stay conscious. He gave Bren a kiss on the cheek - he knew he wouldn't give up that easily. He didn't love a coward.

Did he think love? Oh weird. He was a soulless vampire, so love wasn't possible … right? Oh shit, he couldn't think about this now.

He walked Bren out to the elevator, figuring they'd go to the basement and take the sewer access out of here. These suits probably weren't down there, which was a shame, as that taste of blood made him hungry for more. He kind of wished they sent an army, so he could burn off some of this rage, 'cause frankly this pathetic half dozen just didn't do it.

Bren looked at the bodies and the blood painting the walls as they passed, and asked once more, "This is a dream, right?"

"Absolutely," he lied.

Well, he just wasn't awake enough for the truth just yet.

-------------------------------------

A search of the Vrenick's "ranch" didn't turn up anything amazingly useful, suggesting that whoever did this cleaned up after themselves quite well. He thought he smelled Humans, but with so much Frenik blood and guts around, it was hard to tell. Gold stayed outside while he searched, not wanting to stay in the house a second longer than necessary.

As he came back out, Gold was leaning against the cab, making a call to someone, but he'd ended it just as Logan stepped onto the porch. "Find anything, Marlowe?"

Was that a Philip Marlowe joke? Oh, why not? "Nothing helpful. They cleared out ahead of us."

"So what's our next move?"

"_Our_? You go home. I have to go talk to somebody." Although it would be funny to introduce Gold to Bob, he really wasn't in the mood for it right now.

Gold gave him an exasperated look and put his hands on his slender hips. "Someone murdered my clients. Okay, about to be ex-clients, but I don't like it."

Logan frowned at him, wondering if he could knock him unconscious without breaking his whole head. He looked really fragile. "Can you fight? 'Cause it's possible I could encounter these guys on the way, and I doubt they're gonna give us goody bags and apologies. So?"

Gold grimaced and glanced away, embarrassed. "I don't suppose you have any weapons, do you?"

"Just the ones in my hands."

"I was afraid you were going to say that." He sighed heavily, and admitted, "Look, I leave the fighting to others. I don't have to fight; I can crush people's careers with one phone call."

"Which ain't really helpful in a street fight. Why don't you use your skills to call around and find out who might have hired the Vrenicks? Are there secrets in this town?"

Gold snorted derisively. "Fuck no, honey."

"Then the truth is out there somewhere. Go find it."

That seemed to do the trick, as Gold allowed Thrak to drop him off at his house before Thrak went screaming off towards the Way Station. Once again it was like being on the world's worst roller coaster ride, and he wondered how normal beings without healing factors managed to survive having their organs sloshed around so violently. Luck?

Stumbling out onto the hot concrete, he was almost absurdly grateful for solid ground, and went directly into the Way Station, the bright day and sounds of a drug deal on the corner giving way to sudden, moody darkness and the sonic wash of Serena-Maneesh. The place was empty save for Helga sitting at the bar, sipping a frappuchino and looking at a map of the Los Angeles area, except it was an odd map full of squiggly lines of different colors and weird symbols. Her glance at him was casual, but then she did a slight double take. "Fried donkey balls?" she asked.

"It's not my shirt," he explained with an embarrassed shrug. He went behind the bar and helped himself to a lager as he told Helga about the Vrenick Brothers' ill fated day, and by the time he finished he slipped onto the stool beside her. She thought about it a moment, frowning, then said, "Maybe you're looking at this the wrong way, tiger."

"What d'ya mean?"

"Just about everybody who's anybody in the demon community knows they can't take the Decapitator down with bullets; you're considered an honorary demon, at least in the ways of hurting you. Now these guys are probably way out of the loop having gone Hollywood, but I can't believe even they didn't know that shooting you would do nothing but piss you off."

"I'm considered a demon? Is that good?"

"Actually, yeah; it's a high compliment. Humans are considered weak and clueless by most demons. Considering you one of them means they don't think you're weak or clueless."

"Oh, okay." Wow, how about that - getting a little respect from the demon community. Too bad that didn't translate to the Human one. "So you think the whole attack was what exactly? Just to piss me off?"

Helga shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe it was a way to get your attention."

"For what reason?"

"Hell if I know. I'm just guessing."

He considered that as he drank his beer. So someone wanted to gain his attention … to a mass murder of Freniks? No, that made no sense, especially since they presumably didn't know they were about to be torn apart like do It yourself confetti. Besides, there were other ways to get his attention that didn't involve perforating him like a ballot. So what was the point of it all?

He was about to ask Hel what this funky map was, when Bob appeared, walking in from the hallway. "Well, Hecate was really in a mood," he said, brushing what looked like burned leaves or feathers from his hair (smelled like both). He was wearing the same outfit he was wearing before, but now his t-shirt read, in purple script. _'Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful' _. "I'm probably lucky she didn't turn me into a toad."

"So no Xander, huh?" Hel asked.

Bob shook his head as he walked behind the bar and helped himself to a beer. "Nope. He got real offended 'cause I implied she'd take a soul from a man."

"Oh, right, and she doesn't like men."

"Nope, she thinks they're icky."

"Uh, aren't souls genderless? Also gods?" Logan asked. He wasn't sure he actually cared, he was just trying to keep things straight in his head.

Bob nodded as he took a hearty swallow of beer. "Oh sure, but it's the principal of the thing."

"Well, you guys are a buncha dicks usually," Helga said, with implied irony.

"But that's what you love about us," Bob teased, leaning in to give her a kiss on the forehead. She smacked him on the side of his head with her tail, making him pull back chuckling.

The bar telephone rang, and Bob answered it. "The Way Station, for all your apocalypse needs," he said cheerfully. But the grin fell from his face as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, making Logan tense. What the hell had gone wrong now?

"Hang on, we'll be right there," Bob said grimly before hanging up. "Hel, can you hold down the fort?"

She frowned at him. "Do I have a choice?"

"Thanks hon." Bob came around the bar, and told them what was up. "Brendan was attacked; Kier took him to the demon hospital."

"What?" Logan suddenly had this picture in his mind of Bren shot up like a duck in a shooting gallery. "Who did it? Is he okay?"

"He will be. Let's go." And with no foreplay at all Bob grabbed his arm, and the world twisted inside out, spitting them out into the slightly medicinal smelling corridor of the demon hospital. There were staff nearby, and when they saw him and Bob they cast their eyes down, like they were in such a holy presence that they could barely stand to look at them. Wow, this was weird.

They were in the corridor just outside part of the ICU, and Kier was standing against the wall, a cell phone still in his hand. The pretty boy vampire looked at them in surprise, tucking the phone in the pocket of his long black leather duster. "You weren't kidding by being right here."

"I don't kid about things like this," Bob replied, walking straight into the ICU. The medical personnel working on Brendan - who was laying unconscious on a gurney, an i.v. already in his arm - parted like the Red Sea before Bob, moving back to let him work on Bren in his own way. Bob took his face in his hands, and simply said, "Brendan, look at me."

Bren's eyes shot open, suddenly conscious and alert. Yeah, he'd be fine.

As such, Logan turned to Kier, and realized he smelled strongly of Human blood, cordite … and something else. An odd smell that was definitely otherworldly, but he couldn't place it. "They shot you? What the fuck they do to him?"

"They didn't do anything to him, they just tried." Kier explained that he found a mostly invisible demonic "something" attacking Bren and scared it off before the people arrived. "They said they were Wolfram and Hart after I asked, but I knew that was bullshit. Wolfram and Hart could neutralize a vampire; these people were clueless. They kept trying to get me with these taser things, and then shot me, which did fuck all. They were idiots; clearly they had no idea what they were dealing with."

"You kill 'em?"

He shrugged and looked away nervously. "Not all of 'em."

"Did they say why they wanted Brendan?"

"They didn't say anything, except they thought I was a mutant. What the fuck was up with that? Oh, and they were using these." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small black plug shaped object Logan recognized instantly: an earpiece radio.

"The Organization," he gasped, taking it from him. They always did seem flummoxed by vampires. It was counterintuitive that bullets wouldn't work but the broken leg of a coffee table would; they just couldn't grasp it.

"Those mutant hunting people? Why would they come after Bren? I mean, I know he's a mutant, but … I thought they went after certain kinds, you know."

Logan looked at him sharply. "No. What kinds?"

He grimaced nervously, running a hand through his hair. "Lethal kinds. Bren isn't the killer type."

Logan wasn't sure he liked the implication, but he let it go.

The medical team had all filed out, so Logan went in, but Kier stayed in the hall. Logan threw over his shoulder at him, "You shoulda killed 'em all."

He couldn't hear what Bob was saying to Brendan, but that was okay, because it wasn't meant for him. When Bob finally turned away from Bren, it looked like the kid's color was coming back, his tone changing from a sickly pale with greenish undertones to his more normal wan tan. When Bob faced him, his brow was furrowed, his eyes hooded with dark knowledge. "We have a major problem."

Logan grunted in ill humor. "I kinda guessed."

"Bren was attacked by a succubus."

For some reason, Logan wasn't expecting that. "What, one of those demons that fucks guys to death?"

"Ah, see, that's a fantasy passed on by some horny demons. I'm talking about a real, genuine succubus; the kind that drains the life force out of people and demons alike. Bren's gonna have to rest for a bit, but he'll be okay - Kier interrupted before really serious damage could be done."

"Why didn't it go after Kier?"

Bob shook his head. "Vampires are among the few demons a succubus can't effect. They don't have a life force, or at least not one a succubus can use."

"Okay, so what's the problem? We send Angel after it and go to lunch."

"The problem is a succubus shouldn't _be _here. They were wiped out of this dimension a millennia ago, and by demons no less. They were abhorred more than Berserkers and vampires combined. As far as I know, pure succubae only exist in shadow realms, and spend most of their time hiding, so they aren't wiped out by their fellow demons. Even demons consider them menaces of an intolerable variety."

That didn't sound good. "How do we hunt it down?"

Bob's lips thinned to a grim line, and he slowly shook his head. "I don't know. This one has obviously availed itself to enough life force to be fairly sizable and be able to cloak itself. The more life forces it gets, the stronger it'll be."

"So we have to get it now. You can't tell me you can't find it."

"Although I appreciate the confidence, I really can't trace it from a distance. These things have evolved to avoid all sorts of detection."

Logan glared at him. "You're saying we're fucked."

"Not completely. There is a way to possibly trap it, but I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"Bren would be bait. See, once these things feed on you, they leave a kind of psychic mark, so they can always find you and feed on you again; they only immediately kill their prey if they absolutely have to."

"Shit." He glanced at Bren, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully, his color back to normal. He was doing good for himself, and technically he was an adult, but Logan figured he'd always be a kid to him.

"I have to talk to Kier for a minute. Can you stay here and guard Bren? I'll be right back."

"Guard? You think it might come back this soon?" He glanced at the open door of the ICU and set his shoulders, dropping his hands to his side and balling his hands into loose fists. Actually he hoped it did come back; he could pay it back for what it did to the kid.

Just 'cause you couldn't see it didn't mean it couldn't bleed.

---------------

Kier had just stopped aching and dug the last bullet out of his flesh (it was kind of shallow, having wedged itself against his collarbone) when Bob came out of Bren's room, letting the door flop closed behind him. "How is -" he began, but Bob didn't let him finish.

Bob grabbed him by the throat and slammed him violently up against the wall, making him see stars, as the flesh of Bob's hand seemed to burn against his neck. His eyes were almost glowing blue, but not quite; it was a near thing, rage barely contained. "I should kill you right now." he snarled into his face.

Okay, yeah, this wasn't good.


	6. Chapter 6

There was almost something hypnotic about the way the energy pulsed in Bob's eyes, making his irises look like they were counting out the beat of his heart. Kier knew he should be scared, and he kind of was, and yet there was a kind of inevitably about this. At least if Bob killed him, it would be quick.

"I'm not gonna kill you today, even though you slaughtered those people," he growled, as if reading his mind. (He probably was.) "But I want you to know why. Brendan is your salvation - do you understand? The fact that you love him is the only reason you're not a pile of ash right now."

"Got it," he croaked, nodding as best he could.

Bob let him go, but it seemed to be difficult on his part. He was glowering at him like he still hadn't decided not to mangle him a little bit just to make himself feel better. "I really don't care about your games with Wolfram and Hart either, just don't get Bren mixed up in them. Understand me?"

Without Bob's hand crushing his throat, he found it easier to nod. "I don't want to hurt him."

"I know. If I thought you did, you'd be gone."

At least he didn't fuck around; that was always to be admired. "If you want, I can tell you -"

"Wolfram and Hart are arrogant assholes, but they're not total plonks. They factor betrayal into everything they do, always leaving a safety margin. They will never tell you anything that could really hurt them if it got into the wrong hands. So I'm not interested in playing the "mole" game with you, or the bullshit game with them. And before you ask, I'm not inclined to save your ass either."

Kier nodded, understanding, not happy about it, but what could he do? He knew better than to fight Bob, or even argue with him; he was pretty sure his palm had left a hand shaped burn on his throat.

"There's a way to earn it, though," Bob told him, with some reluctance. "You come clean with Angel about all of this, and feed the Wolfram and Hart info - as dubious as it is - to him."

"He'll kill me."

"I'll be there so he won't. But understand, if Wolfram and Hart hurt anyone in this group, it'll suck to be you. You get me?"

"Yeah." It already sucked to be him; he couldn't imagine how this conversation could go well, especially with Brendan. Was he ever going to forgive him for this? It would only confirm that all along he was right not to trust him.

Of course that was absolutely true. But he still didn't like it.

-------------------------

When Doyle woke up on a cold concrete floor with a splitting headache, he wondered where he'd passed out before realizing he hadn't been out drinking the night before. It took him about a minute to realize that A) this wasn't his body and B) he'd apparently - or at least his new body had - been kidnapped.

Okay, yeah, that was a major league fuck up.

After a moment he pushed himself up to his knees, and waited for his head to stop swimming before he looked around his cell. As cells went, it was rather unfriendly: unpainted cinderblock all the way, with a small toilet in the corner and bolt holes in the wall where a bed probably used to be but was for some reason removed, so all he could do was sit on the floor. "Gee, thanks guys," he snapped, looking up at the ceiling and the single steel door that led out. There was a light fixture on the ceiling, but it wasn't on. "So who the fuck are you? What d'ya want?"

He waited for a reply, rubbing his head, but there was no response. Did he really expect one? Well, it would have been polite.

He wanted to Brachen out, see if he could smell any trace of demons or something supernatural, but then he remembered he couldn't do that anymore. Right, plain vanilla Human. Not really useful in situations like this.

"Hey, could you get me some aspirin or somethin'?" he complained to the walls. "My head's killing me."

Of course there was no response. But he began to wonder if this was a cellblock, if there people beyond the walls, just as confused and stuck as him. Maybe this was some kind of operation; oh hell, for all he knew, this was a demon butcher shop, and they were all in the coolers until someone ordered "filet of Human". So it was up to him to figure a way out of here, wasn't it? Save everyone else he could until Angel could ride to the rescue.

Damn it. He really wasn't cut out for this hero shit. His only honest attempt at it killed him in the first place.

So Bob brought him back for this, huh? Fun city. See if he was gonna get him a "thank you" gift now.

---------------------

Giles wondered if this was how Frankenstein's monster felt.

He regained consciousness strapped down to a gurney by his wrists, ankles, and waist, with a light suspended over him, so the rest of the room was cast in thick shadows. It was cool and he thought he heard echoes, like the rest of the room was empty, but he wasn't sure. Still, he heard at least one person walking around in the dark, but no matter how he turned his head he couldn't make out anything in the gloom.

Giles was a little startled that there was something around his mouth that felt solid, not like metal but very close - what the hell was it? It was as good as a gag, actually better - it locked his jaw, kept him from opening it wide enough to make an intelligible noise.

"Sorry about that, old man," a male voice said, floating out of the darkness. "But we'd heard you might have some abilities, and we wanted to make sure that wasn't the case before putting you in a cell."

Abilities? What could that mean? And what kind of abilities would facilitate gagging someone? What, was he going to cast a spell to make all their bits shrivel up and fall off?

Come to think of it, that was a great idea. Was there a spell like that he could just fire off as soon as they got this gag off him?

Giles tried to squint into the darkness as he turned his head, trying hard to make out something about his surroundings, but it was impossible; these people set it up perfectly. They knew exactly what they were doing when they set this up, and that alone was a chilling thought. These were professionals, then, not some of the run of the mill slapdash demon group. Besides, lots of demons did have unfortunate aromas, and he just wasn't picking up a single trace of that. He was catching the faint whiff of medicinal smells, which wasn't terribly encouraging.

"But the tests confirm you're not a mutant," the mystery man continued. Mutant? Oh dear … "And you're plain old Human all right, so I guess it was just rumors, huh? Nasty things, rumors. You can never tell the real from the fake without a closer look."

So they kidnapped him thinking he might be a mutant? Why would that matter? Well, it would if they were going to contain him somehow; they'd have to know what he could do if they wanted to counteract it. But who would want to kidnap him if he was a mutant?

Wasn't that obvious? The only group he knew about that might do such a thing was that anti-mutant government group that Logan was supposedly affiliated with, the one that presumably "brainwashed" him. They didn't sound like the type of people you wanted to be in the custody of for any length of time.

He wanted to ask what the hell the meaning of all of this was, but he couldn't talk. So all he could do was listen as the mystery man walked the room in darkness, making disingenuous apologies. "We'll let you go as soon as we can, Mr. Giles. We're not bad people really - you have to understand that our hand has been forced. Desperate times, desperate measures, that sort of thing. We'd never hurt a Human, you understand; we protect Humans. That's our job."

Actually he was thinking self-indulgent twaddle was this man's particular job, but sadly he couldn't tell him that. How could knocking someone out and kidnapping them ever be considered _not_ hurting them? Pillocks.

The guy continued talking, but he was no longer listening. He was running through the spells he knew in his head, wondering which one he should throw as soon as they took this damn gag off him.

--------------------------

Logan waited for Bob to come back in to Bren's room before he made a phone call - he didn't want to be distracted in case the succubus came back - as he decided it was probably time to rally the troops.

Marc was staying at the Westport Hotel, but he hadn't known his room number or phone number, so Logan was forced to call the hotel and ask to be connected to "Carstairs Mahoney". Bob gave him a funny look at hearing that name, and then was unable to hold it and just laughed. As soon as the hotel's receptionist put him on hold, he said, "It ain't my fault. Marc likes stupid names."

"I gotta ask him if I can borrow that one," Bob said, shaking his head. "That's fabulous."

"You can be Rutiger," he offered. Bob and Marcus being poorly named Irish brothers actually sounded like a match made in comedy heaven. There was a sit-com waiting to happen, although one potentially raunchy enough to merit an NC-17 rating.

Marc's room phone rang … and rang and rang. Once it passed the dozen mark, he scowled at his cell phone like it would do any good. Bob had stopped laughing. "What's wrong?"

"He's not answering." He shut off his phone, and asked, "Should I be worried?"

Bob grimaced in thought. "Try some others first. I mean, this is Marc we're talking about. He could be out pulling a girl. Or a guy. He's not really picky, is he?"

True enough. So he called Angel's place, and him he got; he woke him up. He filled him in on what was going on, and Angel said he'd be there as soon as possible. Logan then called Xander's place, and got no answer. The same thing happened with Giles - no answer. He called Naomi, and was quietly grateful when she answered, voice groggy with sleep. At Bob's urging, he put in a call to Scott's cell, but he didn't answer. Calling where Saddiq was staying lately only got him shunted to an answering machine, where Saddiq had left a wonderfully terse message: _"If you know who I am, leave a message."_

"Could the succubus have gotten to anyone else?" Logan asked, his gut churning. All incommunicado: Marcus, Xander (Doyle), Giles, Saddiq, Scott. That was too many people to be mere coincidence, and Scott not picking up was really odd, because god knew that Mr. Anal never missed a phone call.

Bob shrugged with his hands. "I assume it's gotten to a lot of people, but there's no rhyme or reason to a succubus. They just attack whoever comes along. They don't deliberately target people … unless …" Bob's eyes suddenly widened, and he barked, "Kier, get in here!"

The vampire obeyed so instantly Logan wondered if he was just waiting outside the door. Maybe it was just a hard push. "Angel and Naomi are on their way here. Guard Brendan 'til they get here, and let them know we'll be back as soon as possible."

Kier nodded obediently, with such passivity Logan again wondered if Bob had him totally under his control; he seemed to be acting oddly subdued. He'd never been crazy about the pretty vampire, but now that he'd saved the kid from two separate threats, his opinion of him had been adjusted upward. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all; not if he killed a bunch of Organization fuckwads.

As Bob walked towards him, he asked, "What do you think's going on?"

Bob shrugged in a way that suggested he was hiding something. "I'm not sure. I want to confirm something before I speculate."

"Give me a hint at least," he prompted. But Bob clearly wasn't in a cooperate mood, as he simply grabbed his arm, and reality twisted away once more, shoving them out in Xander's bullet spackled apartment. The curtain billowed as a warm Santa Ana moved through the city, and Logan scowled. "I told ya to block the window," he snapped, looking around for Doyle. But this was a loft, and since he wasn't in the bathroom, there was nowhere else for him to be.

"The window's fine, mate," Bob said dismissively, turning and leaving the apartment.

"What d'ya mean it's fine? No it's -" But Logan glanced back, and saw that it was back in one piece, no longer scattered in a thousand glistening shards on the carpet. "Okay, that's creepy."

He followed Bob out into the corridor, and they did a quick search of the apartment building itself, which yielded no Doyle at all. The bad feeling in his gut got worse, although Bob was able to look on the bright side. "If he got up and walked to a bar, there's no way in hell the succubus got him."

"You think the succubus could be targeting us?"

Bob clearly hesitated, scratching his head as he considered his response. His t-shirt now read _"My Other Body Is A Cadillac" . _"That was my theory, but Doyle being up and about kind of kills it."

"Is a succubus that smart?"

"On its own? Not really, but it can be commanded like many lower order demons. I thought maybe somebody was taking this opportunity to take us out of play, but I might just be getting paranoid in my old age." He grabbed his arm once more, and teleported them to The X-Jet, where Scott presumably was.

They popped back into reality in the cockpit, which was empty, and showed that the jet was still hidden inside a hangar. "I thought he'd be heading back to New York by now," Logan admitted, heading towards the back of the plane.

"He wants to convince Saddiq to go with him," Bob told him, following him for once. "He thinks he might be in danger out here, especially hanging out with you and your friends. Besides, he doesn't want to lose him like he lost Bren."

Logan snorted derisively. "Lost him? He's an adult now; he made a decision to go his own way. I kinda thought that was the whole point of the school, y'know, teach 'em, train 'em, get 'em the hell out of there and into their own lives. "

"Ideally, but there's that whole X-Men team thing, you know."

"And he wants Saddiq on it."

"Wouldn't you?"

Okay, that was a fair point. You had to admire a kid who was already a nearly unbeatable opponent at fourteen years of age, although if you thought how he got that way - indoctrination, conditioning from birth, et cetera - it was horribly sad. Saddiq really wasn't even built to handle the real, mundane world; he was only built to fight and die for a ruler who no longer "owned" him. Logan felt a kinship with the kid - he could be his own son, pretty much - but he supposed he probably did need the school, if only to teach him how to get along in ways that didn't mean kicking someone's ass.

In the back of the jet they found Scott sprawled on a cot, arm dangling down on the floor. Logan whistled sharply and slapped his hand loudly on the bulkhead. "Get up, Summers - we've got a problem."

But Scott didn't move; he didn't even twitch.

"Oh shit," Bob said, squeezing past him and moving to Scott's side. He crouched down, feeling his neck for a pulse, and Logan saw that Scott's arm had a weird red blotch on it … kind of like the weird red blotch that Bren had on his chest. Oh fuck.

"Scott, look at me," Bob ordered, taking his face in his hands. Scott still had his visor on, so it was impossible to say if that happened, but Logan guessed not simply because Scott didn't move a muscle. "Scott, can you hear me?"

"He's alive, right?" Logan asked, although he wasn't sure why, because if Scott was dead he'd have smelled it the instant he entered the cabin.

"Just barely. He's nearly been drained dry," Bob reported. "He's in a deep coma; I'm not reaching him. We need to get him to the hospital."

"Can they help him if you can't?"

Bob shrugged. "They can keep him alive until maybe I can reach him."

"Does this mean the succubus is targeting us?"

Bob looked up at him with something akin to regret. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say yeah."

Terrific. He wondered if the fact that a succubus was attacking them and the Organization had suddenly resurfaced was just a terrible coincidence, or a new front in an old war.

6

Saddiq walked into the office of Angel Investigations, and was surprised to find the office totally empty. The blinds on the front window were partially open, illuminating the dance of dust motes in slender rays of sunlight. "Hello?" he said, wondering if they were all grouped in the back offices.

But there was no response as he shut the door, and the sound was oddly final, like a tomb sealing behind him. The air in the office was stale and uncomfortably warm as no one had been here to turn the air conditioner on, so he did it, glancing at the answering machine to see if there were any messages. There weren't.

He knocked on Angel's office door before peering inside, but no one was here. Did he get this totally wrong? He thought they were all meeting here later. Maybe he was just too early.

That wasn't his fault; he just wasn't tired and couldn't sleep. Although Bob had made the injury disappear, he could still remember the sensation of the bullet passing through him arm, and damn, he didn't like it. Being stabbed by that Cole guy was worse, of course - there was something about a blade sliding beneath your skin and into your body that felt almost unbearably intimate - but being vulnerable to anything continued to be an unwelcome new sensation. He kept expecting to get berated for it, he could almost hear the lecture from his commander chiding him for being so sloppy and poor at his job, except he didn't have a commander anymore. Scott wouldn't lecture him on getting shot, and certainly Logan wouldn't either - how many of those same bullets had Logan taken going up the stairs? Part of him wanted to ask Logan, if he could get a moment alone with him, how that felt, and how he could do that. If he encountered bullets that could pass through his skin once more, he wanted to be able to face them without fear, charge into them without hesitation, end the threat before it could do him much more damage.

But he had a sneaking suspicion Logan wouldn't teach him how to do this. If anything, he could imagine him saying _"If it gets through your skin, sit the fuck out of the fight." _Which was good advice, but was it always practical? No, he didn't have a healing factor, but a good soldier always had to be prepared to die in defending their cause. To which he could hear Scott saying _"You're not a soldier."_

It wasn't that simple, was it? Was any of it that simple? He'd been trying very hard to figure out what he wanted from life, but truth be told, he just didn't know. He didn't want to admit to anyone that he felt hollow without a command, without a purpose; he felt utterly adrift. He also felt like he really wasn't an actual person at all, but a poor simulacrum of one. They built him correctly in a physical sense, but they screwed up in the intangibles.

While he was staying at that beach house, he'd go over to the public beach on the other side and watch people sunbathing, swimming, surfing, seemingly having a good time, and he wondered how they did it, how they felt that way. He wasn't sure he ever really felt anything. He'd also look at the girls in their bikinis and the boys in shorts and surfer's bodysuits and wait to feel attraction to one of them, _any_ of them, but it never happened. Wasn't it supposed to? All the movies and t.v. shows he'd seen seemed to indicate that people his age should be lusting after each other with abandon, and certainly everyone else seemed to be in complex romantic entanglements: Logan had Faith, but occasionally shared Helga with Bob, who seemed to also be dating Naomi, Logan's former girlfriend, whom Xander apparently had a crush on, while Bren was hooked up with Kier, although he seemed to still have a big time crush on Logan and possibly Bob as well, and Scott still seemed to be pining for Jean, who was dead. Only Angel and Giles seemed free of this particular soap opera, but he had a feeling that, if asked, they would like to have been included somehow. Nobody liked to be alone.

Well, in theory. Was there something wrong with him that he preferred to be alone? He wasn't sure who to ask. He supposed Bob would be the best, especially if he was truly divine. A god would be able to tell you what was wrong with you, wouldn't they?

He drifted down towards the "war room" where they kept the weaponry, almost curious if they had guns with enchanted bullets. Maybe not; there was some indication that those were difficult to both make and find. He'd just entered the room and turned on the light when he heard a noise from the front office - the door closing? He turned around and headed back.

"Hello?" he said, hoping it was Bob. With no one else here, it was an opportune time to talk.

He had just entered Angel's office when the second door burst open … and there was no one there. But he thought he saw ... something. It was like movement, but there was nothing solid attached to it, so he didn't see how that could be.

In that moment, he reflected on his training. Not the Rhajan training, but his training at the school, where Logan actually covered attacks from people you couldn't see. (Admittedly at the time he thought it was rather far fetched, but all training had some use. No knowledge was superfluous knowledge.) His advice was pragmatic: you had other senses - use them. And if worse came to worst, you still had options: if you thought you could take the hit, do it, as that would let you know where and how close your attacker was to you, you'd just have to act fast to capitalize on it. Or you could just hit out and hope for the best. The only other advice he could give was try and make the assailant visible by any means necessary as soon as possible, rob them of their edge.

He felt vibrations through the floor as the thing - and it must have been heavy - charged towards him, and he thought he saw a blur in the air like a heat shimmer, something that wasn't quite there but didn't make sense, and he did the only thing he could do: he kicked out, and hoped for the best.

He actually hit something, his foot impacting with something that felt like a cement wall, as something hit him square in the chest and sent him flying backwards through the connecting door, which splintered into kindling around his unbreakable skin. He hit the floor hard, the air leaving his lungs in a rush, but even as spots danced before his eyes, he saw that blur of movement unattached to anything, and wondered what the hell he was going to do now.


	7. Chapter 7

The war room - it was right down the hall.

Saddiq actually didn't like his chances, but he didn't see that he had much choice in the matter. He shoved himself backwards, his lungs aching for a good breath of air, and scrambled towards the room at the end of the corridor, feeling the vibrations of his attacker thrumming through the floor. He just about reached the doorway when something hit him in the back, propelling him into the room and straight into the old oak table in the center of the room, which exploded around him like so much breakaway furniture.

He had a sense of movement behind him, and he turned as he fell, which may have saved him at least temporarily, as the thing was on him before his back hit the floor. He felt a pressure on his chest and a sudden, terrible wave of cold that seemed horrible and monstrous, as if a vein had been opened and all his blood was draining away at a rate that was supersonic. With the cold came a weakness that was even more frightening.

He still couldn't see the damn thing, just a hint of a distortion in the air, but he knew from its weight that it was a huge and inhuman. A demon? That might make the most sense.

He punched it, punched where some of it must have been, and did so repeatedly, with what strength he had left. It felt like he was punching an armadillo with scales made of granite, and he rammed his knee into what was presumably its underbelly, but felt like it was made of titanium. No matter how much it hurt, he kept pounding away, even as it felt like he was using his last energy in this fruitless task.

Finally he hit something it didn't like. It grunted, a breath as cold as winter and as sour as fear sweat, and Saddiq managed to get his leg up and kick it off him, its bulk slamming into the doorframe and taking a piece of it with it.

A minor victory, and he couldn't enjoy it. He felt so weak he wasn't sure he could move. He just wanted to sleep; to close his eyes and drift off with the endless cold. But he wouldn't let himself do that. To give in without a fight was not only dishonorable but cowardly, and he was not a coward. He was Saddiq; he was a guard of the royal court and an X-Man, and he wouldn't die without fighting it every step of the way.

He couldn't risk turning his back on the thing, so he shoved himself backwards until he was within reach of the nearest weapons cabinet, just as the air shifted and blurred. He blindly grabbed whatever was closest on his right and just managed to raise it in his hands and pull the trigger as he felt the weight of the demon crush his legs. He'd grabbed some kind of bolt thrower, a rather medieval looking weapon that could have been the rocket launcher version of a crossbow, and as he fired it pneumatically flung a small projectile about the size and thickness of a shotgun shell into the thing.

There was a noise like a cracking shell, and something liquid splattered from a nowhere point in the air, a slightly pearlescent fluid like semen, but it had the meaty smell of blood. The demon made a noise like an aggrieved yowl, and with blood now streaming down its … chest (he decided to mentally call it a chest; he had no idea what it actually was), he had something to focus on. He ratcheted back the firing mechanism and shot another bolt at it; he continued to do this as rapidly as possible, until he was out of bolts, and then he used it as a bludgeon, smashing it into the open wounds with all the strength he had left.

The thing was roaring now, screaming, a slightly sub-sonic noise he could feel vibrating in his gut, and the thing turned and galloped out of the room, out of the office; he heard the front door slap open or maybe it slapped closed - it was incredibly hard to tell.

He sagged back and the bolt thrower fell out of his hands, and he knew he should grab it back up in case it returned, but his fingers were numb, and his world was narrowing to a single point of light in a growing circle of darkness. The cold and weakness was just overwhelming; he felt like he was slowly submerging in icy water, sinking so slow it was almost sensual, comforting in an odd way. Perhaps if he hadn't expended all his remaining energy trying to hurt it, he would have been able to stay conscious.

But Saddiq couldn't accept that his choice was bad. He hurt the thing - his enemy was marked, and would always remember him, would always remember that he wasn't an easy kill. That felt like exactly what he was made to do.

If genetics were destiny, at least he'd fulfilled his.

---------------------

It took them so long to respond that Doyle wondered if he actually was being watched, and he almost gave up. But finally he heard footsteps outside his door, and remained where he was, laying splayed on the cold, hard floor, pretending to be dead.

It was a risky gambit, but the only one he could try right now, and besides, he knew from past experience he was very good at it. If these demons were at all concerned about their merchandise - a/k/a Humans - they would be worried if one seemed to suddenly be broken. So he complained loudly about his headache until he seemed to have a mild fit and apparently passed out. Doyle didn't find it easy to keep track of time when playing limp and dead, but he figured he'd been "out" for at least six minutes, maybe even a bit more.

He was good at playing dead. He'd developed the fake "pass out" to get out of bar tabs and the occasional bet without having to devolve to fisticuffs which, to be perfectly honest, wasn't always his strong suit. As a general rule, he avoided pain as often as possible. Which is why it was such a bitch that his head hit the floor so hard, but unavoidable in the name of realism. He also went for a limb twitch, but quickly stopped 'cause there was such a thing as overkill.

From the sound of it, three different guys came in, about one more than he anticipated, but that was okay - he figured he could work with it as long as they weren't spaced too funny. Two crouched down on either side of him, and he felt one feeling for a pulse on his neck as the other said, "What the fuck's this about?"

"Did ya hit him in the head?"

"No!"

"Maybe he's having a reaction to the tranq," Guy number three said. From the sound of it, he was near the door.

"Is that possible?" Guy number one pried open his eyelid, but Doyle had made sure to have his eyes rolled up. It hurt after a short while, but again, realism.

"When chemicals are involved, almost anything's possible. I'll go see if a med bay's clear."

Med bay? Since when did demons have "med bays"? Maybe they were doing medical experiments or something - what a pleasant thought. But he heard the third guy walk off down the hall, and he was glad, as now he had a shot at getting these guys.

He let the guys bicker over what to do for a couple more seconds, then made his move.

He elbowed the one of his left hard in the gut, and before the one on the right could react, he grabbed that taser thing he had in a holster at his side, thumbed it on, and stabbed him in the arm with it as he tried to grab it back. He stiffened and fell backwards as Doyle turned the taser on the other guard, the thing snapping like a whip. Jesus, how much of a charge did these things carry? Were they legal? (Were they lethal?)

After stunning them both, he scrambled to his feet and rushed out the door, figuring an alarm would be going off any second, and he was surprised to find himself in what looked like an actual cellblock, a dark cinderblock hallway with steel doors on either side of the corridor. A quick glance at the locking mechanisms showed they were operated by some kind of key card system, so he couldn't just throw open the doors and cause chaos like he'd been hoping to do. He considered going back and searching those guys for a key card, but then he heard the unmistakable sounds of boot soles slapping on cement, and he just ran for it.

The hallways were all low lit and maze like, similar in almost every detail and in their directional turns, enough so that he felt like he'd wandered into a space station movie set or West Hollywood sex dungeon by accident. Finally one turn ended in a dead end, the hallways ending abruptly in a metal wall that looked thicker than all the others and covered with a faint patina of rust, and he had nowhere left to go. He pressed himself flat against the side wall of the corner, and waited for his pursuers to come around. He'd give at least a couple of them a little "present". An alarm must have sounded, but obviously it had been a silent one.

He saw the blur of movement, deep black against grey darkness, and he got one of the storm troopers with the taser, making him yelp in surprise before he went down. But others converged on Doyle, a pair of guys dressed in similar black uniforms (not the Scourge; far more military), and he kicked one in the balls before punching the other one across the face with the hand holding the taser. It went off, and he was pretty sure he shocked the guy in the face, which sounded unbelievably nasty.

There was a loud, echoing "click", that of several guns being cocked, and he paused to see about ten guys aiming big ass military rifles at him. "That's enough," the guy who must have been the head storm trooper said. Doyle couldn't single him out from the mass of guys with guns. "We don't want to hurt you."

He scoffed. "Really? So the whole attackin' thing and aimin' a shitload of guns in my face is your version of a group hug? I'd hate to see what you'd do if you fuckin' hated my guts."

All the storm troopers had flinty, dead eyes, even though most couldn't have been over thirty. Definitely military, but shit, since when did the military kidnap people on American soil? (Did they think he might be a terrorist or something? IRA?) "We just need to hold you until Weapon X makes the exchange. Then we'll let you go."

"What? Who the fuck is Weapon X? And who the bloody fucking hell are you guys anyways?" He glared at them, still not dropping the taser, even though that would have been the smart thing to do: guns trumped tasers much like a lead pipe trumped fists, and could he risk getting this body damaged when it was just a loaner? But this was eighty thousand shades of wrong, and he wanted some answers, damn it, whether he was going to get any or not.

Some of the storm troopers exchanged wary glances, as if not sure if they should tell him the truth, and if so, who did it, when there was a very loud explosion, and suddenly no one cared anymore.

--------

After getting Scott to the hospital, they paid a visit to Marc's hotel room, and found him in much the same position, sprawled on his bed, completely insensate to the world. But there was something interesting here: namely there was a gun dangling from Marc's hand, the one Logan recognized as the one he usually stashed under his pillow in case of violent wake up calls. It wasn't fired - he didn't smell cordite - but the fact that he had it out meant something. "He knew he was under attack," Logan said, trying hard not to pace or kick a hole in the wall. Leave it to Marc to fight while he wasn't even awake. There was a reason why he liked the guy, and that was it.

Bob held his face in his hands, and asked, "Marc, can you hear me?"

Much to Logan's great relief, he muttered something. It was probably "Yeah", but the syllables were too mushy to say for certain.

"Didn't drain him as much as Scott," Bob reported, even though Logan had figured that out for himself. "Scott was probably the first hit, or close to the first hit. Marc must have known something was wrong from the get go and tried to fight it, as futile as that was, but the succubus must have thought it wasn't worth the bother. It took what it needed and moved on."

"To Bren."

Bob glanced up at him and nodded. "That would be my guess. Unless there's another victim we don't know about yet."

They stared at each other a moment, and then seemed to reach the same conclusion at the same time. "Giles."

Logan was a little tired of jaunting around and wanted to hunt this fucking thing down, but at the moment they were limited. Bob couldn't track it down from a distance, and neither could he. He kept picking up a faint, otherworldly scent, much like he picked up on Kier, but it was maddeningly anemic, and it disappeared as soon as he stepped out of the room, even though it couldn't teleport and must have run through here. So it had learned to cloak its scent? Well, why not? Demons had sharp senses of smell - if it was trying to hide from them, it would have to conceal its scent.

But could the Organization be connected to this? They really didn't deal with demons all that much - beyond that DNA mixing thing - and he couldn't see them taking the quantum leap to major league demon summoning and controlling. They used resources they found like any good scavenger, but they hadn't yet acknowledged the existence of the arcane and occult arts, and probably never would. So this left any of the half million demonic enemies they had as the source of the succubus attack, and how would they narrow that list down? The Organization deciding to be jackasses was just coincidental, another case of the Douglas Adams maxim that nothing was ever so bad that it couldn't get worse.

They got Marc to the hospital and then went over to Giles', but it turned out his place was as deserted as Xander's apartment. It was kind of creepy and deeply wrong, but that aside, Logan found himself admiring Giles's library. It wasn't just its own room, but spread out into the hall and living room, bookcases and shelves filling almost all available wall space. Apparently you could take the man out of the library, but not the library out of the man. Most of the books fit his previous Watcher job, spell books and demon dictionaries in about two dozen different languages, a couple of which Logan didn't recognize and assumed were demon dialects of some kind. He didn't smell the succubus's faint trace either, only tea and the musty smell of slowly decomposing books.

As fascinated as he was by his book collection, he turned away, frowning at Bob, who also flipping through a leather bound book. "This isn't right, is it? Both Doyle and Giles gone?"

"Maybe Giles took him out for a drink," he suggested, flashing him a brief smart ass grin. "Okay, yeah, not likely. But I'm not sure what it means."

"Neither am I. Could the people behind the succubus have taken them?"

Bob walked off into Giles's neat kitchen and Logan followed, mainly to make sure he wasn't up to something. Although he hated to traffic in stereotypes, for a straight guy, Giles kept an amazingly neat house. "I don't see why. The succubus could attack them and leave them as temporarily out of play as Scott, Bren, and Marc. Why take them specially? Doesn't make sense."

Logan's cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and while Bob stuck his head in Giles's fridge to search for … well, he had no fucking idea, he pulled it out and answered it with some reluctance. "Yeah?"

"So you're still alive?" Gold replied with sarcastic surprise. "Good thing you're nearly indestructible. That could raise your percentage of the back end if we market you right."

"Can the bullshit. Did you find out something?"

Bob found a can of ice tea, which he sipped as he turned to look out Giles's kitchen window, which was quaintly framed with lace curtains that must have been leftovers from the previous tenant. He was singing softly, "It's my party but I'm waiting for someone to start it, my party there's blood on the ceiling the carpet, gotta get my mojo runnin'-"

Gold sighed extravagantly, stretching it out until it was almost a comment in itself. "Well, I found out who hired the Vrenicks, but it doesn't really make sense. Some organization, but I wasn't able to find out specifically who. I doubt it was CAA or the Teamsters, but god knows in this town -"

It felt like he'd just been shot in the spine; an electric shock ran through him as brutal as anything he'd ever experience. "The Organization? They were hired by the Organization?" Bob turned to face him, no longer singing his creepy song.

"_An_ organization, yeah, but no one seems to be able to tell me which one -"

"You just did. Thanks." He hung up before Gold continued to talk about getting him a studio contract, and just as the thought popped into Logan's head, Bob nodded and agreed with him aloud.

"Now we know where they are."

------------

The mystery man turned out a slender, nebbish-y looking man in a white lab coat, probably in his early thirties, although his straw blond hair was thinning so drastically he looked ten years older.

A very military looking man in a black outfit and carrying a military rifle stood back and off to the side as the nebbish-y man released Giles from his restraints and took the jaw restraint off. "I'm really sorry about this," he said blandly, sounding about as sincere as a boss who praised you before he fired you. "But we had to make sure."

Giles glared at him, sitting on the edge of the gurney, astounded by his urge to simply hit this man. He wanted to beat some kind of genuine Human expression into his face, and he was quietly appalled by his own brutality. He'd been in America too long, perhaps. "If you had simply asked me, I could have told you I wasn't a mutant."

The "doctor" smirked in a very smug way. "Well, you know, trust but verify."

"Of course. But here's something I'd be surprised if you could verify. I'm not a mutant, I have no special physical or mental abilities, but I am a spellcaster. _Vis vires_."

At those words, both the "doctor" and his soldier companion went flying into the back wall with bone shattering force, unconscious before their bodies thudded to the floor. Perhaps that was too powerful a spell for his purposes, but frankly he was really bloody angry. He was tired of always being the one to get knocked out, to get kidnapped, to be held hostage. He wasn't weak; he wasn't without resources.

It may have made him a hypocrite, though. He always taught Willow not to use magic for such a negative purpose as violence, such a thing could not only corrupt you but come back hard in a karmic sense, but to be totally honest: screw it. He already knew he was beholden to a demon or two, that his soul was already bound to be held hostage by characters both unsavory and suspect, so he didn't see that he had much to lose at the moment.

Besides, right now, he just wanted to vent some rage.

He walked out of the austere, high tech Frankenstein's lab and into a wide cinderblock corridor, where more soldiers in black body armor appeared, aiming rifles at him and barking, "Stand down! We will not hurt you if you capitulate!"

Americans. They'd already hurt him - all they were doing is promising not to hurt him further. He felt the energy gathering in his chest, a ball of flame welling deep inside his sternum, and he almost felt sorry for these tossers. Almost. _"Extorqueo," _he snapped, and the group of soldiers was flung aside as bonelessly as toy soldiers, thrown into the walls and ceiling and each other at near hurricane force. None of the guns went off, for which he was glad, as he couldn't create such a precision bullet avoidance spell without some special herbs and artifacts, although he was pretty sure he could create a broad spectrum kind of force spell that would repel them from his vicinity.

He continued walking down the hallway, hearing the sounds of more soldiers approaching, and he couldn't help but smile grimly to himself. Did they still think that guns were going to work?

Well then - time for a little lesson.


	8. Chapter 8

7

He knew Bob knew stuff other people didn't, and had sources other people couldn't, but it still struck Logan as showing off that he discovered the location of the secret Organization base in two phone calls. Bastard.

He told him he wanted to do the hit a bit differently, in that Bob would be him, and that he wouldn't be visible to anyone. Logan tried to follow that logic, and wasn't sure he had. "Say that again?" he asked.

Bob just stared at him, the faintest of smiles curving his lips. "I'm you. See?" And just like that, he was - Logan found himself staring at himself, right down to the appalling t-shirt and the day's growth of beard. When he spoke, he sounded just like him too. "They'll come after me like I'm you. But that ain't gonna work, is it?"

"And I'm … invisible?"

He ducked his head to the side. "In a sense. You'll always be there, but no one will be able to see you until I say they can."

"Even if I punch someone?"

Now he grinned, and it was supremely unsettling to see a slick Bob grin on his own face. "_Especially_ if you punch someone. They won't know what hit 'em."

Okay, this was a plan he could get behind. "So we're gonna tear the place up?"

Bob's look was measured and wary. "Well, I was thinking getting Giles and Doyle out would be the priority."

"Fine. After that."

"We really don't need to. I can understand you wanting to blow off some steam, but -"

"What the hell do you mean we really don't need to?"

"I'm gonna put an end to this. It's gone on long enough, don't you think?" Something in Bob's tone stopped him from commenting further. Why? Was this a push? Probably, but there wasn't anything he could really do about it; he didn't even feel like doing anything about it.

He may have looked like him, but he certainly wasn't. And that was pretty much the crux of Bob's plan.

* * *

The force of the explosion sent the soldiers flying, and Doyle found himself shoved backwards as well, hitting the back wall so hard he felt his ribcage groan, electric shocks radiating outward and slithering down his nerves. He wasn't sure if he'd broken anything or not, but he hoped not since it wasn't his body to wreck.

He lost hold of the taser, but since the soldiers were all sprawled around, he could trade up to a gun. He was wondering if he should - did he even know where the triggers were on those damn things? - when he noticed someone standing in the fog of pulverized cinder blocks at the end of the hall, where there was a brand new hole in the wall big enough to drive a tank through. The person seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite believe it. "Giles?" he asked, pausing in his reach for a rifle.

Giles stepped forward and squinted through the fog at him. "Xander? I mean Doyle - what are you doing here?"

"Honestly? No fuckin' clue. I just woke up here."

"They kidnapped you too?" He scowled at the thought. "I wonder if anyone else is here. I suppose we should look." He said something in Latin (or at least it sounded vaguely like Latin), and there was a loud, weird noise, all the locks on all the doors shattering at once, metal hitting concrete and bouncing across the floor.

Doyle sat back on his haunches, a bit surprised. Was that right? "What did you just do?"

"I'm getting out of here. Are you coming with me?" He didn't wait for a response, he simply turned on his heel and started walking down the cross corridor. Doyle climbed up to his feet and followed, although there was something wrong with all of this. Since when was Giles the demolition expert? Since when did he throw around spells like hand grenades? Doyle didn't know a single thing about this guy, but he got a sense - probably from Xander's mind, even though he wasn't sure how to access it - that this wasn't exactly right.

Besides, his impression of a Watcher was that of a bookish aesthetic, a guy (or gal) who was essentially a walking library of demonic shit, not so much a hunter as back up for a Slayer. Oh sure, Watchers sometimes got proactive, mainly against vampires, 'cause there just weren't that many Slayers to go around, but this seemed rather extreme somehow.

But as he scrambled over unconscious soldiers, reaching down to snag a rifle, he got a sense from Xander that Giles had a rather dark streak; a kind of frightening dark streak. Not seen a lot, but when it came out, duck and cover. Xander seemed to know how to handle the rifle too, taking off the safety and hefting it upright, leaning the barrel against his shoulder, and Doyle wondered when a Sunnydale guy would join the military. You'd think just surviving to get out of town would be a job in itself.

Either most of the other cells were empty, or the people had already scampered by the time they worked their way down the blocks, 'cause the only people they encountered along the way were soldiers trying to stop them. Doyle thought he'd have to shoot them, but Giles inevitably threw a spell at them that took them down before they could even finish sighting down the barrel. Okay, yeah, Mr. Watcher was in full hard ass commando mode. He was glad he was on his side.

"So, uh, d'ya know who these guys are?" he wondered, scrambling to keep up with Giles.

"I believe they're the Organization, an anti-mutant government group."

"We're not mutants."

"No kidding. "

"D'ya know what Weapon X refers to? 'Cause those guys back there said they were holdin' me until the exchange with Weapon X, which makes no sense to me."

Giles actually did pause, stopping for a moment to look back at him, his brow furrowing in thought. "I think that's a nickname of some sort for Logan."

"Really?" He considered that a moment. "Oh, I guess I can see that, he's a weapon, got the X gene. Not very imaginative, is it?"

"No, but I'm sure most governments aren't known for their imagination."

"Fair point."

They walked into a segment of the corridor that suddenly sealed around them, back and front, cutting them off. Doyle hefted the rifle and looked for something to shoot, as he heard the hiss of what must have been some kind of gas. But then Giles said something weird sounding - demon language? Latin just didn't have those "grgh" sounding syllables; maybe it was Belial - and the newly minted steel wall in front of them exploded outward as if hit with an invisible battering ram. Giles then continued onward, and Doyle followed, wondering how much magic this guy could sling. Throwing around dark magic could get tricky, couldn't it? It could do bad things to the practitioner, right?

"Let us out and I won't bring this place down around your ears," Giles sniped, to no one in particular. But they had to have been watching. "You can't contain me; you can only annoy me further."

"So that's the big plan?" Doyle wondered, reasonably certain they could do better.

Giles turned to glare at him. "Do you have a better plan?"

What color was Giles's eyes normally? Doyle couldn't remember, and Xander's memories weren't helping him, but he was fairly certain they weren't pitch black like they were now. He knew this was bad; no normal Human could have their eyes turn completely black unless some bad mojo got a hold of them, unless magic took them over. And not good magic either.

The hair on his arms was standing up, like the static electricity was unbearable, and he was aware his life might actually be on the line here. Sometimes the magic could carry you away, and you were unable to distinguish friend from foe. "Nope, not at all. Lead on."

He stared at him for longer than he needed to, but finally he turned away and continued down the hall, and Doyle let out the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding until now.

Oh shit, what was he supposed to do about this?

* * *

The base was called Point Pacific, and it was an abandoned military base - of course - in an area that looked barren and completely strip-mined. In other words, a happy, cheery place that instantly brought to mind torture and death. Bob had teleported them straight inside the perimeter gates, right in front of the main entrance, and even though he couldn't be seen, Logan tensed and waited for an attack.

It was no real surprise that it didn't come; no, the real surprise was that no one attacked Bob a/k/a him either.

There was an alarm screaming through the base, but it was at the very edge of Human hearing, so it was unlikely that anyone found it quite as annoying as he did. All barriers fell away before them as Bob led the way in, singing, "You'll fall apart before all this is through, you'll let the pressure get the best of you -"

"I don't sing," Logan reminded him.

"You do now," Bob replied cheerfully.

He considered punching him for that when a soldier scrambled past, and did an almost comical dead stop upon catching Bob (him) in his peripheral vision. He pivoted, his rifle raised, and while Logan moved to grab him, Bob simply said, "Freeze. What's going on, son?"

As if to emphasize how bugfuck things were, there was a loud "boom" that echoed through the base, a tremor that they could feel through the floor. Was someone else attacking the base? "A normal has manifested powers and is tearing the place down," the soldier replied, perfectly paralyzed in a posture of defense.

"How the hell can a normal manifest powers?" Logan exclaimed. He'd have thought he was lying, except that in Bob's grip, no one could lie.

"Answer him."

"I don't know," the soldier replied. "Nobody knows. We don't understand it."

Bob cocked his head to the side as if listening to something in another room, and smirked. "It's always the reserved ones, isn't it? The reserved British guys are always the ones you gotta watch. When they snap, they do it up big."

It took him a moment to get what he was saying, but he did. "It's Giles?"

"You should feel the magic being slung around here; it's like Wizardfest '97."

He raised an eyebrow at him. "You just made that up, didn't you?"

"You've never been to a Wizardfest? Bloody hell, I'll have to take you to one some time. It's really commercial now, but you can still wring some fun out of it."

"You are so making this up."

Bob turned one of his wide, smart ass grins on him, which looked really sinister on his face. "That's for me to know and you to find out." He turned his glance on the soldier, and said, "Take me to your leader."

The soldier moved, walking back in the direction he had come from, and he and Bob followed him, while noise and chaos continued on the other end of the base. Bob was back singing again, and Logan considered pushing him, but what was the point? It wouldn't stop him. "Sweet annihilation in your hands, your own personal Stalingrad -"

They were led to an adamantium reinforced room that normally wouldn't have been easy to get into, but with Bob they just walked right in. It was a control room full of monitors, a bank of them filling the wall with flickering images of one similar corridor after another and destruction on an impressive scale. There were soldiers in the room, who all raised their rifles as one, but Bob said, "Why don't you point them at everyone else? Don't shoot, just threaten for a while. Pretend you're in a Tarantino film."

The soldiers did as he said, switching their aim from him to each other, and also aimed their weapons at the director, a slightly bloated white guy (they were all bloated white guys) in a khaki uniform with vague markings, his hair a premature mane of white. The soldiers were snarling insults at each other, reasonably creative curses that made for interesting background noise. " What the hell are you people doing?" The director snapped, standing up from behind the main console. He turned his enraged look on his men, then glared at Bob. "And how the hell did you get in here?"

Bob held his hands out wide in a semi-shrug. "You wanted me here, Dave, remember? That was the kinda pathetic plan, wasn't it? An exchange, me for them. Did you actually think that would work?"

The director - Dave - stared at him in disbelief. "How the hell do you know this?"

Logan had walked around the soldiers, amused at their empty threatening and posturing, and headed for the director. So that was the plan? That was pretty lame.

"I know you're desperate," Bob continued. "I know Cressy's really kicking your ass in. But did you really think I was ever gonna help you get her? Did you really think you could blackmail or brainwash me enough?"

The director's ghostly blue eyes narrowed, and after studying him for a moment, he snarled, "You're not him, are you?"

"Let him see me," Logan said.

Bob pointed at him. "There he is. Now guess who I am."

The director did a slight double take, and Logan figured he must have just popped into existence, which would have been startling since that wasn't in his power set. Logan gave him an evil smile that couldn't possibly be mistaken for friendly, and the director sighed and sank back in his chair, defeated, as his eyes scudded back to Logan number two (Bob). " You're the reality warper, aren't you?"

"Name's Bob, actually, but call me whatever you want as long as it's not lame ass motherfucker." Bob's eyes widened, and he barked a laugh. "My code name is Pretty Boy? Cool beans! I like that. I'll get that on a t-shirt. I bet there's a whole bunch of guys in West Hollywood that would agree with you too. I'm such a hit at gay nightclubs you can't possibly imagine it."

The director was staring at him with strangely hollow eyes. He'd already become resigned to his defeat; he wasn't even going to try and fight, probably because he knew he couldn't. That was rather pragmatic of him. "You're responsible for the Human, aren't you?"

"Giles? Oh gods no. You just pissed off a spellcaster, mate; if you can't deal with the supernatural, don't play in the pool." There was no transition at all - one second he looked like him, and the next second Bob looked like himself again, with his artfully messy blond-brown hair, nuclear cobalt eyes, black leather pants, and a green t-shirt reading - what else? - _Pretty Boy_. "Now, what are we gonna do with you, Dave?"

"I have some suggestions," Logan interjected, glaring at the director. He seemed to shrink beneath his gaze, and Logan could smell his fear like a spill of fermented vinegar.

"I have a better one," Bob replied casually. "Dave, go back to headquarters and do whatever you can to shut them down. Figure the best way to shut down the Organization, and do it. Think you can handle that?"

Something gleamed deep in the director's eyes, and Bob's push cemented in his mind. "I can."

"Then go do it. Shut this base down, clear it out, and get to work. Go help Cressida."

"And that's it?" Logan asked querulously. "We let him get away with this shit?"

"We're not letting him get away with anything. We're using him as a tool to shut down the Org. A pretty good deal, don't you think?" Although it sounded like he was asking a genuine question, Logan knew it was rhetorical; Bob had already decided on a course of action and didn't want his opinion. "He's a last minute replacement anyways; he's just picking up someone else's slack. Wolfram and Hart apparently killed the first director." Another blast seemed to shake the entire building. "Come on, let's go calm Giles' down before he brings the roof down on our heads."

Bob left the room, casually strolling out as if he wasn't walking out into a war zone, and Logan followed, mainly because what he just said didn't make total sense. "What? Wolfram and Hart killed the first director? Why?"

Bob shrugged as the alarm stopped sounding through the base, and a different one sounded, this one slightly less urgent but far more audible - the evacuation klaxon. Dave was indeed sounding the retreat. "I guess they decided that hitching their wagon to them was a zero sum game. There's no honor amongst thieves or evil lawyers, you know. If you can't help them in some way, you're sucking in water at the bottom of the ocean before you realize you've been sized for cement shoes."

It didn't take them long to find Giles, who had an armed Doyle in tow. "Oh, hey guys," Doyle said, as if they'd just run into each other in the supermarket. "Took you long enough to get here, eh?"

Giles's eyes were completely black, something he'd seen happen to Mordred before, but for some reason it seemed much more sinister to see it in Giles, especially since his unseeing gaze landed on him first. Logan thought he could feel it slide along his skin like a razor blade. "This is your fault, isn't it?" he said, in a voice that had just an edge of the inhuman about it.

"Uh -" Doyle said, almost as a warning, but clearly he didn't know what to say or do. He wasn't the only one.

"No powers," Bob replied, waving a hand dismissively. "Come back to us, Rupert."

Giles blinked rapidly and wavered on his feet as his eyes suddenly cleared of blackness, and he rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. "Oh dear. That went a bit farther than I expected."

"Sounds like my third marriage," Bob noted cheerfully, clapping his hands together. "Shall we go?"

It was Doyle's turn to look surprised. "That's it?"

Logan shrugged helplessly. He didn't like it either.

"They're closing up shop, mate. Seriously, we need to get outta here before someone hits the self-destruct."

"We have a problem," Giles said, looking at Bob straight on. If he was embarrassed - and Logan had some sense that he was - he was hiding it well. "When we did the soul transference spell, something got out with Doyle."

Doyle shifted his rifle until the barrel was pointing down at the floor. The soldiers were paying them absolutely no attention now. "It did?"

Bob nodded. "I know. It's a succubus. It's already attacked Scott, Marcus, and Bren. It seems to be targeting us."

Giles frowned in consternation. "How is that possible? They aren't that smart."

"Someone must have known what we were going to try, and were standing by to take advantage of it."

"Who?"

"Well, we have what, a million enemies?" Logan carped. "Kinda hard to narrow it down."

But Bob stared at a nowhere point slightly west of the far wall, and suddenly frowned, his eyes narrowing as if he was staring into the sun. "Maybe not as hard as we think."

Giles glanced over his shoulder, in case Bob was actually staring at something physical, and then looked back at him in curiosity. "Do you know who it is?"

"No, I'm just thinking aloud," Bob said, but Logan knew he was lying. Why? What had he figured out?

But Bob teleported them out of there, leaving Logan to wonder why Bob wasn't sharing the name of their new enemy.

* * *

Angel had to explain what a succubus was to Naomi, who only knew of them from what she described as "really bad soft core horror movies". Angel almost wanted to ask what those movies could possibly be named, but he couldn't figure out how to do it without sounding like a pervert. When told of its cloaking abilities, she commented, "Like Predator? Oh shit, can you sense it without seeing it?" Since Kier had he assumed he could too, but there was yet another movie he had never bothered to watch. If they were going to have so much impact on his life, he supposed he should just go to Blockbuster one slow night and catch up on all the references so he felt less like an old, stupid ass.

Kier was nervous, which made Angel a bit suspicious. Why was he nervous? What was he hiding? He claimed he wasn't nervous, just "edgy" because Bob had implied that the succubus would be returning and he was hoping that Bob would come back before it happened, but Angel was sure he was hedging. Besides, what was the likelihood that a succubus would actually attack a crowded demon hospital? Succubus generally preferred to take on their victims one at a time; crowds was not their forte.

Angel felt weird about leaving Kier alone in Bren's room, but Kier was not inclined to leave. He supposed he had to trust him for now, he had protected Bren before, but there was no way in hell a single act would make him trust Kier completely. He was a soulless vampire, and simply wanting to be notorious was no grounds for trust. If he liked Bren, fine, good, but he still didn't trust that either.

All of them - Bren, Marcus, Scott - were in adjacent rooms, as this was clearly the ward where the victim of succubi and other psychic demons were treated, and since they didn't know how to split the difference, he and Naomi sat in plastic chairs in the hallway, waiting for Bob and Logan to return. He'd tried calling Doyle - Xander - and Giles, but there was no answer in either case. He didn't know if he should be concerned or not. (Doyle could be out drinking, making up for lost time; he supposed if he were him, he'd be doing the same thing.)

"Do you think electricity would work on a succubus?" Naomi asked. She hadn't put on any make up, so dark circles were quite visible under her eyes. None of them had gotten much in the way of rest lately.

That was such a good question he didn't know how to answer it. "I don't know. But I think you should stay out of any fight with it. They hardly need to make physical contact to feed off your life force. You should leave it to us dead guys."

She fixed him with a scathing look. "Do you think Logan or Bob are going to stay out of the fight?"

Damn it; women were always nailing him with the sharp observations. "No, but Bob's a god, and to take his life force down to a truly dangerous level, it'd have to drink him for years. And Logan's … Logan. You can tell him it could kill him, and all he'll do is shrug."

"Do you think his healing factor covers life force?"

That was a puzzler. "I'm going to say no, but honestly I have no idea." He did have a sinking feeling they were going to find out before all of this was over, though.

Angel shifted in the uncomfortable chair, wondering how a vampire with no blood circulation could actually get a numb butt, when he heard a loud noise near the front of the hospital, followed almost immediately by screams. Both he and Naomi jumped to their feet, suddenly awake, and he could feel a repetitive thudding through the floor.

Kier stuck his head out of Bren's room to look, and almost instantly morphed into vampire face. "Holy shit, it's here."

"The succubus?" Angel asked, even as he said it aware it was a stupid question. What else would it be? "Get behind me," he told Naomi, morphing into game face and pulling out the sword he'd brought with him, just in case. He hadn't actually expected to use it, but he never went anywhere without expecting a fight.

A good thing too. He'd never fought a succubus before, but even as old as he was, there was a first time for everything.


	9. Chapter 9

Angel had expected an unseen opponent - as bizarre a concept as that was (at least it wasn't new; he knew some ghosts) - but what came gallumping down the hall towards them was partially visible, in the strangest way possible. Its chest and the front half of its lower body were visible, while the rest of it wasn't.

The chest was almost literally barrel shaped; it had a wide curve, like its ribcage was perfectly circular. Its flesh was covered with overlapping scales, each as big as a butter knife (and similar in shape), a kind of opalescent off-white, almost yellowish in color. It had some bleeding (? or at least seeping) wounds in its visible chest, about a half dozen holes leaking white fluid, although one in the center of its chest looked particularly big and nasty, the yellowish flesh beneath the scales perfectly visible, the striated muscles a kind of pinkish-orange. Its front legs ended in flat, blunt claws, almost like a gargoyle statue on a Gothic church edifice. Just guessing from the size of the chest and the front legs, he'd say it was about eight to nine feet tall, and about five and a half feet across. It put the "bus" in succubus, he supposed.

Angel didn't wait for it to come to him, he charged it, ramming the sword into that big open chest wound. It let out a screech that threatened to break his eardrums and seemed to vibrate his internal organs, and it continued forward, knocking him off his feet and throwing him straight back into Naomi. He felt a mild electric shock as they collided and hit the floor.

It turned to burst through the doors - or at least that's what Angel thought; it was impossible to say with a half visible creature of dubious intent - when Kier came flying through the door, something metal and shining in his hands. "For Bren, fucker!" he shouted, as he drove what was apparently a broken i.v. stand into the invisible area above its visible chest - the cranial region?

It screamed even worse now, thrashing in a way that sent bits of the wall and the plastic chairs flying (okay, so it had a tail), and it tried to throw Kier off but he grabbed the sword Angel had buried in its chest. It did buck Kier off, but he came away dragging the sword with him, opening up an even bigger cut, the demon's white plasma spurting out all over the floor.

Angel was back on his feet and pulled out the only weapon he had left - a stake - and drove it into what he assumed was an invisible flank. The stake broke, but he'd put enough force behind it that it penetrated the scales, its white blood oozing onto his hands like hot glue. The beast thrashed, but Angel was ready for it, using the opportunity to grab its back (it had a slight hump) and jump on it, hoping to feel his way to its neck - if it had one - and crush it. But its thrashing became wild, and it even hit the floor, rolling over on its side and crushing his leg, threatening to crush the rest of him as well.

Kier clearly didn't know much about sword fighting, but it didn't matter, as he hacked away at the thing like a piece of frozen beef, sending scales, blood, and flesh everywhere as the thing became more and more visible. The screaming was almost constant now, a noise you could feel in the pit of your chest and made your gorge rise involuntarily, and Angel was able to pull himself away from the succubus and roll free as the thing lunged at Kier, trying to get him to stop hurting it. It collided with Kier, ramming its head (? Couldn't see) into his midsection and sending him smashing into and through the wall. But even as he was being pulverized, Kier hung on, and rammed the sword through whatever was crushing him. The subsequent cascade of blood revealed the sword sticking sideways through a flat, almost serpentine head with about a half dozen tiny eyeballs clustered together like black grapes in the center of its forehead. The only other features visible were a wide, lipless gash of a mouth, and two vertical slits that could have been nostrils.

It reared back and Kier fell to the floor, bleeding from the nose and mouth, just as Angel used the nearby wall to help him get back up to his feet. He was sure he had at least one broken bone in his leg, he could feel its jagged edges grinding into his flesh as he tried to balance upon it, but he figured he'd heal given enough time. The one good thing about being a vampire was you could take damage like this and not have to worry about it too much.

Just as he was gearing himself for another attack, a familiar voice shouted, "Fire!" While technically there was no flame at all, the succubus reared back, as if Bob's voice alone was a weapon.

Then there was a series of loud explosions, and it was the sharp scent of cordite that made Angel realize that someone was shooting at it. It actually worked too, the bullets piercing its tough hide and spraying more white blood into the air. "How do I kill it?" Logan shouted, and Angel belatedly realized he was asking the question for the second time. "Oh, fuck it."

"No!" That shout was Giles, although it came too late, as there was the familiar noise of Logan's claws springing from his hands, and he lit into it, claws flashing as they sliced through air and revealed skin, chunks falling away as if the succubus was a Thanksgiving turkey being carved by a knife happy butcher.

The thing thrashed and reared back, retreating from the pain, but Logan collapsed to the floor even though it hadn't obviously hit him. Did it need to? Close proximity and physical contact with the succubus had pulled away enough of Logan's life force to knock him out. But on the plus side, the thing was more visible than ever, and Logan had cut off one of its legs just above the knee - a speedy retreat was no longer possible.

Bob grabbed Logan and pulled him away from danger, his eyes now burning like alien suns, the veins standing out in blue relief on his face. "You will listen to me," he demanded in his god voice, but the succubus kept backing down the hall. It could resist Bob? Well, it was made to be the ultimate parasite; perhaps resisting gods somehow became part of the package.

Giles shouted something, a spell, and a flash of light hit the succubus, making it shudder, while Xander - no, Doyle - raised a very sleek and scary looking automatic weapon and emptied a few more bullets into it. Angel grabbed one of the butt numbing plastic chairs and broke off one of its metal legs, throwing the rest of it aside. As it neared him, he jumped it and drove the jagged metal fragment into its side, making it screech and flail. He thought he could hold on to it, but the thing was so slick with blood he instantly lost his grip and went flying down the hall, only stopping when he hit the wall so hard he felt his ribs shatter, the weight of his body leaving an imprint in the drywall.

Bob had grabbed Logan's face like he was going to kiss him, but that would have actually been less freaky than what actually happened. Power glowed bluely in Bob's hands, and his eyes shot open as blue veins began crawling up Logan's face, mimicking the ones on Bob's face. Even Logan's eyes started to glow a faint but obvious cobalt.

Logan - Bob? Some combination of the two? - then looked down the hall at the succubus and ran for it. The best turned and seemed to level itself for the charge, but at the last second Logan suddenly slid, as if trying for home base, and as he skidded underneath the succubus he jammed his claws into its belly. It screamed in pain as Logan tore into it, the Bob energy presumably protecting him from further draining of his life force, and as it tried to shake Logan off (no go - he'd dug his claws in) , it didn't seem to notice Bob walking towards it, his body becoming lost beneath a violent blue energy field with every single step he took.

Bob seemed like he was all energy but in a vaguely humanoid form, his face almost gone beneath a veil of power that was honestly painful to look upon - it was like rubbing sea salt into your eyes. Angel had a slightly obscured view thanks to the fact that he was sitting on the floor, but even so his eyes were watering so much he might as well have been crying. Giles, Doyle, and Naomi had all raised their hands to shade their eyes, but the light was too strong - they had to turn away. Kier was too unconscious to care.

Logan stopped hacking away at the succubus from underneath and slid out from beneath it, getting to his feet and remaining in close proximity, even though Bob had reached out and touched the succubus, making it go eerily still. Logan stared at Bob and the succubus harmlessly and straight on, but blue energy still glowed faintly on his extended claws, and Angel had a feeling if he could see his eyes, they'd be blue. He wasn't completely sure it was Logan, that he was conscious; he had a feeling that Bob was simply using him as his avatar, splitting his power in two halves.

Bob held the succubus's head in his hands. "Time to go back," Bob said, in a voice that wasn't quite a voice, one felt more than heard. Then the light flared, a sun going supernova, and he had to look away. When he turned back, and the afterimages faded, Logan was standing where he last saw him, and so was Bob, totally back in his humanoid form, but the succubus was nowhere to be seen. Even its chopped off body parts and most of its blood was gone.

"Well, I bet that gave everyone in intensive care a bit of a shock," Bob said lightly.

Angel stared levelly at him. "Do we even know who sent it and why?" His ribs ached, his leg ached, and he was fairly certain that standing up was beyond him.

"I have an idea, but it's not something to be handled by the corporeal."

Giles was still rubbing his eyes, presumably still a bit dazzled by the light show. "You're saying a god sent this after us? Why?"

"That's kinda what I've gotta figure out. But we don't have an overabundance of friends, do we?" He was evading; that was quite obvious. But what was also obvious was if Bob didn't want to tell them, they would never know - they couldn't force it out of him. Bob gestured to Logan to come to him, and he did, moving almost robotically. "Can you hear me, Logan?"

"Yeah. What is it now?" Even unconscious, he still had a 'tude. You either had to admire that or be supremely irritated by it, depending on which side of it you were on.

"I'm going to send you to my place. You get some rest; you'll be fine when you wake up. Understand?"

"Yeah yeah yeah," he grumbled, and then Bob teleported him away, although he remained behind himself.

Doyle slung the rifle over his shoulder, and admitted, "I don't get it."

"Logan lost consciousness when the succubus drained his life force," Giles said, working it out even as he told him what happened. "Bob … well, for want of a better term, co-opted his body to use it. Logan hasn't yet regained consciousness."

"I'm sure he'll understand," Bob said. "He doesn't like to miss a fight."

"That still seems really creepy," Naomi admitted.

Bob shrugged helplessly. "I know. But it seemed to be the obvious solution." He sighed, signaling a topic change, then pasted on a beaming smile. "Okay, so who needs healing?"

That was actually a short list, but Angel figured that was probably a good thing.

* * *

He could have made a big stink about it all, he could have set off every single goddamn alarm in the building, but he wasn't really in the mood for foreplay. He just wanted to get this fucking over with.

Bob teleported directly into what the Wolfram and Hart toadies called "the white room", the dimensional interface where the Senior Partners would occasionally deign to speak with the lessers. Bob materialized with chain mail over his shirt and leather pants, and as soon as he saw the black panther interface, he materialized a rather large bullwhip and cracked it at the cat avatar, making it jump. "Now, fuckers! Show yourself!"

The white room dissolved into that stuffy, old fashioned library, and the Senior Partner that appeared was once more in the guise of a plump, matronly woman in a Victorian style dress, this time made of forest green velvet and augmented with fussy layers of lace and tulle. Her featureless black eyes still took him in with great disdain. "Finally embracing sadomasochism, Bob?"

He let the whip dissolve into nothingness, but kept the chain mail. "Did you really think you could get away with this? I mean, this was incredibly fucking clumsy, even for a bunch of wankers like you."

She materialized a pink fabric fan, which she used to waft non-existence sweat off her skin. "Am I supposed to know what you're -"

"Stop!" He roared, and reached out and turned reality around them, making the backdrop twist from a staid library to a hellscape of volcanic black rock risen up like the discarded rib bones of mastodons and pools of burbling red lava reeking like demonic piss and giving off caustic waves of heat. "It wasn't going to work! Killing them? Really? With a _succubus_? That left Angel and me out of the fray - you knew we'd come after you."

She looked pretty pissed off, her face pinching sourly as she glanced around at their new backdrop, but any thoughts of lying quickly disappeared in the face of his rage. "Kill you? Hardly. We simply wanted to keep you busy and out of our hair. Although I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear it, we have more going on in our existence than you and your little band of hardy degenerates."

"Bullshit," he snapped, although he got the sense that she was actually being fairly truthful … well, to a small degree. The succubus wasn't the be all and end all of their plan; it was a distraction. And didn't he know from what? What else could it have been? How else did they know they'd be trying a soul transmigration spell? "Why did you take him?"

"Take who?"

"Play coy with me and I will drop you into an acid pit."

She glared at him, the void of her eyes somehow managing to convey hate without a single genuine emotion in them. "We helped you with Aesma Daeva. Did you really think we'd do that for free? Out of the goodness of our hearts?"

Unbelievable. "Help? You did nothing! And oh, by the way, you weren't helping me, you were helping yourselves, because you didn't want Dave on this plane any more than I did." He shook his head in disbelief, running a hand through his hair. "Why are you even attempting this bullshit? It's lame, even for you. Give Xander back, and I won't blow up every goddamn building you have from here to Portugal."

She grinned suddenly, a savagely cold gesture. "No. You're alone, Bob. You're one being, cut off from its collective, and we are not. The Powers won't go to war over a single Human soul, and you can annoy us, but you're not much of a threat on your own. We've been more than patient with you, Bob, because of what you are, and who you represent, but don't kid yourself. You're a small fish."

Bob crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at her. "So all of this meshugga was counting coup? Jesus, you guys must be desperate."

"Insult away. You have our answer."

"Fine. You won't have any toadies anymore. Good for you."

"And what does that mean?"

"Take one of mine, I'll take thousands of yours. By the time I leave this building, it will be empty save for the few demons immune to me. They will know they're on the wrong side and switch. This will happen in every single building you have in North America, and then I'll spread out across the globe. Hell, I might even jump dimensions and fuck things up over there. I will keep doing it until you give Xander back or you run out of people."

Her face sharpened until it seemed like she might turn into a shark. "You'd never do that, Bob. What about the free will you so love?"

"We're gods. We don't fight fair." He let that sink in, and he could see when she began to believe him. He didn't make idle threats, and he hoped that she knew that by now. Besides, if he co-opted the will of all Wolfram and Hart employees, he'd be doing them a favor - they made a horrible choice selling their souls away. After letting that settle a moment, he said, "I want him back now, or I start with the fifteenth floor."

"It's not that simple."

"Yes it is."

"No, it's not. We may have taken his soul, but it's no longer in our possession."

He glared at her, hoping this was a joke, but the Senior Partners really didn't have a sense of humor. "What the fuck did you do to him?"

She shifted nervously, pulling her skirts away from a lava pool that was threatening to light them on fire. "We do have … obligations …"

"Spill it."

"Annwyn."

Bob closed his eyes and exhaled as if punched in the stomach. The news just kept getting better and better, didn't it? "What kind of deal do you have with Gwyn? I thought he was off the radar."

"Mordred's back in circulation. So's he."

"Oh, for fuck's sake! Didn't they settle this already?"

"Apparently not. Can we go back now?"

Bob relinquished his hold on the landscape, and they popped right back into the stuffy library. The Partner fanned herself and sat on the arm of an overstuffed wing chair. Apparently lava pits didn't agree with her delicate constitution. "Mordred had nothing to do with closing the Hellmouth," he pointed out, although he had no idea why. Gods not only didn't fight fair, but they were extraordinarily petty.

She shrugged, a movement of her shoulders that looked tectonic. "It doesn't matter. He 's planning to do something to him. And before you ask, it isn't clear what; we didn't ask for details, and he didn't supply them."

"Plausible deniability." That's where you had to hate the whole "evil lawyer" aspect of all of this. He dry washed his face, and wondered how he was going to handle this one.


	10. Chapter 10

8

Only after they'd thought about it for a while did they realize that something had been very wrong with the succubus. Namely, it had been partially visible - someone had hurt it before them, made it partially visible. They didn't have to think about it long before the obvious answer reared its head: Saddiq. Angel fought back a sudden surge of anxiety, wondering if they were finally going to find their first dead body.

He was not where he'd told Bren he was staying, and there was no sign of a struggle, which you'd think there would've been. Since he hadn't come to the hospital, they checked the sewer access (it was unlikely he came that way, but not impossible), and Kier suggested they check the office. It turned out to be a wise decision, because once they were inside Angel could smell the succubus's blood, and they followed the scent to the war room, where they found Saddiq sprawled on the floor, a spent and broken bolt thrower just out of reach of his outstretched hand. He looked oddly pale, the color of curdled milk, and he was barely breathing, but he was still alive, which was a relief. Since Bob wasn't back yet from wherever he'd gone, they had to take him back to the hospital on their own. Doyle was a little confused - he'd thought Saddiq was totally invulnerable - and the doctors at the hospital discovered the hard way that Saddiq's skin was impenetrable to average needles.

Bren was conscious, and they filled him in on what happened that he missed.. He was sorry he didn't get a chance to hurt the succubus as well. He was more worried about Saddiq, though.

When Bob returned, Angel was fairly certain he smelled faintly of lava, but that didn't make a lot of sense. He went and healed Saddiq before returning to Bren's room, where they'd all gathered. "Okay," he said, his t-shirt suddenly reading '_This Isn't My Fault'. _That wasn't a good sign. "I can assure everyone that the people behind the succubus aren't going to bother us again. But we have another problem -"

"Who were they?" Angel interrupted. Did he really think he was going to get away without telling them?

Bob rolled his unearthly eyes and frowned at him, looking like he was about to tell him to fuck off. But he clearly thought better of it, and admitted, "The Senior Partners were trying to keep us distracted. They're going to stop, because I threatened a hostile takeover."

"Wolfram and Hart were behind this?" Angel repeated in disbelief. Oh, son of a bitch. How many of their buildings did he have to destroy before they decided to leave him alone?

"They _what_?" Kier asked, looking really surprised and pissed off. That was an interesting reaction.

Bob waved his hands, as if trying to discourage them. "Guys, as a problem they're the past. We have a new, more pressing problem."

"Don't we always?" Giles noted wryly.

"Xander's soul is in the custody of Gwyn, a god with a … history with Mordred. And not a good one. Now before you say "Mordred didn't help us", I know. I'm pretty sure Gwyn doesn't honestly give a fuck."

"What can this Gwyn do?" Naomi asked. "And why does he want someone's soul anyways?"

"Gwyn is … it's hard to explain. He's been out of the game for a while, As for what he could be doing with someone's soul, I have no idea - he doesn't need 'em." Bob sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and scowled at his own thoughts.

"So what do we do?" Kier asked.

"Nothing. I think this is one I'll have to take care of myself. Oh, and with Mordred."

Doyle's look seemed to cycle through several disbelieving stages, finally settling on indignance. "So what the hell are we gonna do? Just sit here and twiddle our thumbs?"

Bob shrugged. "You could probably find something better to do."

Angel knew what this meant, and didn't like it. "You're leaving us out."

Bob shrugged. "I'm sorry, but this is probably a god fight. But don't worry, I'll get him back."

Angel forced a sigh, shaking his head. "I can't sit here and do nothing."

His cobalt eyes took on a sly gleam, and he smirked in a lopsided way. "Oh, I think you'll find something else to do."

It took him a moment to get it, but the thought entered Angel's mind as if the thought had been subtly planted there by Bob.

And maybe it had been - but it was a _damn_ good idea.

* * *

He probably should have come here directly, but Bob had decided he wasn't going to do this anymore. He was tired of fucking around with gods, especially those who had pointless little battles that endangered other people for no reason, but he knew he needed more firepower just to shut this all down without a fight. Luckily, he knew exactly who to go to.

She was amenable to bargaining, which was a good thing, and as soon as he got the bargaining done, he showed up at Mordred's place.

He'd never been there before, and he was surprised at how nice a place it was. It was a huge penthouse suite overlooking the fabled Left Bank, and Bob was roughly certain that it hadn't existed until recently. Amazing no one had noticed, but that was magic for you. It had hardwood floors occasionally covered with decorative and rare Oriental carpets, and a huge window wall that let in every bit of sunlight breaking through the cloud layer over Paris.

Mordred was in bed, and what a big bed it was. It wasn't king size more than it was Luciano Pavarotti size, a huge nest of silk sheets and down comforters in a riot of primary colors. Bob only knew he was in there somewhere because his foot was sticking out over the near end of the mattress.

The room was very sparsely furnished in an art deco style, which managed to look elegant and not austere, a rather tricky thing to pull off. But then again, if you were half magic you could probably pull off all sorts of miracles. "Mordred, wake up," he said, then went over, grabbed his exposed foot, and partially yanked him off the bed.

That woke him up. He made a startled noise and sat up, pulling his foot back, and attempted to blink the sleep out of his eyes. He said something that wasn't a word, paused, and tried again. "What the fuck are you doin' here?"

"Gwyn's back on the map, and he's after you."

Now he was really awake. "What?"

"He took a friend of mine, and I'm getting him back. You're gonna go talk to him and work this shit out. I mean seriously, how long has this been going on? Since Myrddin, right? Gwyn's pissed he used magic to create you; you're obscene or something."

Mordred scrubbed his hand through his mussed hair, trying to make his sleepy brain work a bit more clearly. "Uh, yeah, I guess - Gwyn? I'm not facing that fucker."

"Yes you are. But don't worry, you're not going to fight with him."

"I'm not?" To say he sounded dubious was a complete understatement.

"No, I have a plan. Come on, get dressed, we have a dimension to storm."

Mordred clearly intended to protest, but he knew it would be pointless, and just threw back the covers and got out of his huge bed. He wasn't looking forward to this, but Bob didn't expect him to. He didn't know how perfect his plan was.

But he would soon enough.

9

They waited until everyone was conscious and able to take part, although it was completely voluntarily. Luckily recovery was pretty much done by the next day, and as Angel had expected, no one refused to take part.

Although he wanted everyone's input, in the end the main strategists were the ones he anticipated: himself, Giles, Helga, and Logan, with Helga and Logan pretty much embracing the "let's-just-plant-C4-and-walk" aesthetic. Crude, but what it lacked in finesse it made up for in sheer carnage. But they came around to the idea of a much more up close and personal touch.

Angel wasn't sure about having Kier in on this, especially after what he'd told him about working for Wolfram and Hart, but his anger towards them (mainly for trying to kill Bren, as far as he could tell; the rest of them could go hang, but nobody messed with Brendan) seemed genuine, which Bob confirmed. The funny thing was, Bren was still acting frosty towards him, as if he hadn't forgiven him for being a mole,

Could soulless vampires love anyone beyond themselves? He'd have said no … except he knew Spike had loved Dru - albeit in a very sick way, but still - and he always felt some kind of … pull (for lack of a better word) towards Darla. It could have been just the sire/sired connection, but he wasn't sure that was it. He'd sired quite a few vampires, and that sense of pull wasn't always in effect - look at him and the Weird Sisters, for example. They pretty much hated him, but in an odd, almost passive aggressive way, and he couldn't blame them in the least. So he supposed it was possible, in a way, just unlikely. But if he was bullshitting, Bob would have known. He didn't know if he'd ever trust him, though.

But right now they were all on the same page, mainly because they needed to be. They would start at precisely sunset so neither he nor Kier would be impeded, and as it was, it was a heavily overcast, non-stereotypical L.A. kind of day, so they had no problem heading out early. Kier had actually given them vital information on the mystical wards protecting the lobby, and Helga and Giles easily came up with spells to counter them. But the first person in was Naomi, at least in the lobby proper - hidden with the hood pulled up on her sweatshirt and sunglasses on, she would drain all the power, shutting down the elevators and paralyzing all the tech in the building. Meanwhile, he and Logan would be coming up through the sewers, which fed directly into the sub-basement, where they would launch their attack.

Logan complained about the smell - he always did when they traveled through the sewer - but Angel was glad to have him as his fight partner. Not just because he knew his fighting style, but because he was a guy he never had to worry about. He didn't have to keep an eye on Logan's back as well as his own; Logan took care of his own. And if he did get hurt, he was generally okay in a minute,

Logan took point, leading the way down the corridor, and he was confronted by guards alerted to the presence of an unauthorized vampire. One shoved a crucifix at him while the other threw holy water in his face. Logan wiped the water off, and muttered, "Coffee would've worked better."

They seemed to get the idea he wasn't the vampire and reached for their more conventional weapons, but that was all they were able to do before Logan put them both flat out on the floor. It never did take very long.

On their way up through the sub-basement levels, they encountered about a dozen more guards, but they hardly slowed them down. Angel took on the guards armed up to take on a Human, and Logan took on the ones armed up to take on a vampire, and they were down with little trouble at all. A couple of punches and kicks, and they were through.

The power died with little warning. There were a couple of quick, faint flickers, and then the power just completely went out. He could imagine Naomi loitering in the lobby, pulling the power out of the building and blocking it off, even depowering their own internal generators. It was a rather tall order, but nothing she couldn't handle - if she could take out a city block, she could take out Wolfram and Hart's building.

The power outage cut off reinforcements from reaching the basement. But it also meant they had to climb up the elevator shaft to reach the lobby. Angel thought that Logan would use his claws to climb up the walls, but he didn't, he just pulled himself up the main cable after him. Angel was actually impressed with how he was able to keep up with him; he sometimes forgot his muscular arms weren't just for show.

Once Naomi had cut off the power, Giles would be hitting the lobby with a spell that would neutralize the protective wards, and Helga, Saddiq, and Kier would burst in, giving any civilians the chance to flee before it got bad. Giles, Doyle, and Bren would be the last ones in, making sure that Wolfram and Hart didn't try and send in reinforcements from the outside.

By the time Angel had pried open the elevator doors from the inside, the fight was on. As soon as there was a massive power drain they must have known what was going on, and armed goons had come pouring down the emergency stairwells. Saddiq, Helga, and Kier were crushing heads with little abandon, and he and Logan instantly joined the fray, as Giles came in and threw some wards to seal the stairwell doors. There was some light in the lobby, mainly due to the fact that Naomi had absorbed so much electricity that she now glowed with it, little flickers of miniature lightning bolts coiling around her arms and face, sparks dripping from her fingertips. Some of the guards saw her, froze, apparently debated internally how they were supposed to handle her, and then turned away, choosing ignorance as better than being fried like a Twinkie at the county fair.

It was like fighting in a crowd, but with so many hard fighters, the Wolfram and Hart goon squad found themselves coming up surprisingly short. Saddiq would grab their arm as they raised one of their guns, and with a single twist dislocate their arm from their shoulder with an audible "pop" and throw the guards straight into Logan, who would elbow them or punch them so sharply in the face that their heads would snap back like they'd been shot, and they'd be added to the quickly growing pile of unconscious and useless men on the floor. Helga and Kier played volleyball with their guards, Helga using her tail to grab them by the throat and drag them into Kier's path so he could disarm them and beat them up a bit before she brought them back to her. Given the choice, they'd probably would have rather been beaten by Kier, as Helga seemed to take too much joy in hearing their bones break. (Would they have felt any better if he told them he'd talked her into not bringing her machete along?)

Angel just threw some roundhouses, connecting solidly with jaws and midsections, while a few snap kicks cleared a path. Bones snapped, teeth flew, and the scent of blood filled his nostrils, reminding him he was hungry.

A team broke through one of the protective wards Giles had thrown up, but just as they were about to come through, Logan raced to cut them off. He threw open the stairway access door just as they started to come out, startling them, and then he began slashing his way through them, disappearing inside the stairwell. There were many thuds, sudden flurries of shots, and aborted screams that followed.

Doyle, holding a stun stick he had taken from a guard, asked, "Do you think he needs help?"

As if on cue, a guard came flying through the stairwell door, hitting the wall so hard his helmet audibly cracked and fell into two separate pieces as the guard himself slumped to the floor. Without missing a beat, Doyle said, "Should I take that as a no?"

"I would," Angel admitted.

Pounding on these poor wage slaves wasn't really the point, although it certainly helped get a message across. Guards tried to enter through the elevator shaft, but Naomi turned the power back on for that one elevator, and lowered it to the point where the men had to crouch to avoid being crushed by the empty car, leaving them no leverage with which to pry the lobby doors open.

Just off to the side of the main lobby desk, where the security guards usually sat, Giles used chalk to draw symbols on the marble floor, the chalk so pale it was all but invisible in the dimness. That was the point.

Giles had finished just in time, as the thing they were waiting for occurred happened. Gavin Park, ghost lawyer, appeared amidst the unconscious soldiers, looking around in utter shock. "What the hell is the meaning of this?" he exclaimed, luminescent in a spectral way.

Giles threw down the small glass orb of liquid he'd had in his pocket, and when it splashed on the chalk circle it briefly lit up green, then faded to black, Gavin stuck inside. From the horror on his face, Gavin knew he was trapped, stuck like mystical glue, at least for the time being.

"I want you to listen good," Angel told him, converging on the circle. Everyone did, making him feel surrounded and vulnerable, a rare but memorable experience for a ghost. Even Logan came out from the stairwell and joined them, leaving his claws out so the blood could drip from them dramatically and Gavin couldn't help but see it. "You made my life hell last time and killed my people. This is your one and only warning. I won't tolerate it next time. Bother me and my people again, and we will bring this place down around your ears." Angel stepped up to the edge of the sacred circle, and pulled out the knife he'd had hidden away in his jacket, and held it towards Gavin. The knife was mystically, specially treated, so it could effect ghosts. From the way Gavin suddenly reared back, he must have felt it. "Do you understand? Fuck with us again, and it's the last thing any of you will ever do."

"I get it." Angel let the knife slip forward, and Gavin stepped back to the edge of the circle, as far as he could go. "I said I get it, all right? Put that away."

"Tell the Partners I'm done with their bullshit," he growled, fighting hard to keep his vampire side down. "It's over." He held Gavin's gaze until he nodded sharply, communicating both his understanding and his fear. If Angel wanted to kill him now - temporarily admittedly, since he was still under contract - he could, and they both knew that.

Kier came up on the side of the circle, and he was in vamp face, flecks of blood splashed across his face. (That was just from fighting, right? He hadn't bit anyone when he wasn't looking, had he?) "And tell that Sagawa bitch I quit," Kier snarled. "If any of you fuckers bother me again, I'll kill every single fucking one of you in your sleep."

"Can I threaten someone?" Logan asked sardonically.

Helga patted him on the back before squeezing his shoulder. "Hon, just by showing up we've threatened them all." Which was oddly true. Not only were they both former assassins, both incredibly deadly on their own terms, they were also inextricably tied in with Bob. A move against them would doom the Senior Partners to an unbelievable world of hurt. Angel couldn't imagine that they'd dare right now or ever again.

"This was the warning shot. You won't get another one," Angel said, turning on his heel and walking away. Just the act of turning his back on them and strolling away as if they could never be any kind of threat was an insult in itself. The others followed suit, although Giles, Naomi, and Logan left last to make sure no one tried anything or tried to follow. Naomi only gave them their power back as soon as they were all outside, and the change was dramatic. From shadowy gloom to a skyscraper lit up like it was noon.

It was all part of a helpful reminder. They were playing with fire. If Wolfram and Hart really wanted to get burned, it was their choice. You couldn't say they didn't warn them.


	11. Chapter 11

10

Bob couldn't remember what the mystical isle of Avalon was supposed to look like. It was some misty fantasy isle, right? A place of wispy fairies and magical gnomes or some shit like that.

Technically Gwyn's land was the mystical land of Avalon (really Annwyn, but you had to allow for misspelling and mispronunciations), but it wasn't an isle (it was a dimension), and it really wasn't a mystical land of happy elves and fairies and peaceful retreat. It actually looked quite a bit like Wales, all green and hilly, only down in the valleys the small hillocks were made of piled bones and the rivers looked clear but smelled like blood when you approached them. The green, rolling hills were broken up by large forests, pines as big as redwoods, and the trees themselves had a tendency to relocate by whim. One minute they occluded the horizon, and the next they were off to the near right, branches rustling like they were restless and hungry. They might actually have been - Bob was never sure about those damn things.

He allowed the chain mail to return over his clothes, and this time he included a helmet and a heavy (but not too heavy) sword. He felt like he was in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but that was pretty cool. "I hate this place," Mordred grumbled behind him. "And why do you look like that?"

"Haven't you ever heard of getting into the spirit of things?"

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

He made a rude gesture with his chain mailed fist. "You can't be gloomy all the time, mate. It's bad for the digestion … or something. Actually I don't know what it does, but nobody likes a whiner."

"Whiner? Mon dieu, do you know this fucker -"

Mordred stopped as Gwyn suddenly popped into their path, a towering bear of a man clad in living green vines that hid most of his bulky musculature under broad, three lobed leaves, his eyes just two big glowing coals beneath the shadow of tangled vines. He roared - or attempted; it actually sounded comically bad - and held in his hand an old fashioned metal pike that ended in a wickedly curved hook that was just begging to be used as a weapon in a slasher film. "What the hell are you doing here, Bob?" he grumbled, his voice sounding like dried leaves rustling across rocky ground. "Did you bring him as a peace offering?"

"Now wait a fucking second," Mordred exclaimed angrily, whipping off his sunglasses dramatically.

Bob held up his hand, signally for silence. "That's exactly why I brought him here. You two need to work this shit out without killing others, and by the way, I want the soul back. So give it to me, and I'll leave you two to have at it."

The hulk of moving greens that was Gwyn wavered in the breeze, as if on the verge of blowing away. (Oh, if only.) "You come here and demand something of me?" He blustered - well, as much as a pile of leaves could.

"Well, not demand so much as extort. Give it to me, or suffer."

Gwyn laughed, an unsettling rumbling that sounded like a distant earthquake. "_You're_ threatening me? I can crush you." As if to bring this point home, the restless forest started springing up around him and Mordred, a living prison with grasping branches and trunks as thick as Roman columns. But just as soon as they sprung up they stopped, the branches almost flinching as if in response to a burning hot wind.

Gwyn turned, feeling the disturbance in his dimension, and standing twenty feet away was Bastet, looking at all of them like they were completely mental. She was in her standard Humanoid form, with feline, amber eyes dominating her small, delicate face, wearing a sari of copper colored silk that nearly matched her cinnamon skin tone perfectly. The fur on her head was still shorn into a short haircut shape, a dark walnut color with honeyed undertones. "I know he can be a dick, but only I have the right to kick him around. Marry him, then you get the right to kick him around."

"Thank you sweetie," Bob replied, but meant it. Bas was doing him a real favor here, and while he knew that he'd pay for it, she really wasn't that unreasonable in working out a deal with him. He was just extremely lucky that she still liked him, for whatever unfathomable reason.

Gwyn glared at her, seemingly at a loss for words. Bas was much stronger than him or any of them; if she wanted to take out the trash, she could undo this entire dimension and be back home in time for lunch. Gwyn's leaves seemed to shudder, "I thought you two had broken up," he finally said, sounding defeated.

Bas shrugged a single narrow shoulder. "We did in an official sense, but things are never that easy are they? Not that you'd know, being a miserable old prune."

"Hey!"

Bas glanced past him, over his ferny shoulder. "What is it you wanted again, hon?"

Bob lifted up the visor on his battle helmet. "I want Gwyn and Mordred to settle their shit without violence. Also, I want the soul the Senior Partners paid him off with."

She nodded and glanced back at the living leaf pile. "What he said. Cough it up or I start burning your forests down."

The leaves rustled, and Mordred grunted indignantly. "He's the one with the problem, not me," Mordred protested glumly.

"You wouldn't dare violate my sanctity for that piece of garbage," Gwyn challenged, a branch gesturing back at Bob like he was swatting an invisible fly.

Bas kept her gaze level, and without even a blink the trees around them burst into flames. Mordred neared Bob just to be closer to his protective aura as Gwyn screamed, a sound like rock scraping metal, and shouted frantically, "Stop! Stop!"

Bas's expression was so flat she might as well have been filing her nails. "Do you really wish to challenge me? I have very little patience, and it's almost gone. Give him what he wants - _now_."

Bas was just the bitch goddess from hell - how could you not love that?

The dimension twisted, reality had a brief hiccup, and Gwyn turned and threw something at him, which Bob caught before it smacked him in the helmet. "There. Now leave and never come back."

It was a soul gem, a type of prison for life essences that could only exist in the upper dimensions. Basically it looked like a big opal, roughly the size of a grapefruit, with something colorful deep within the snowy whiteness, cinders of red and gold. Bob sensed the presence of energy in there, although it was impossible to say who or what, since soul gems were perfect prisons. Still, there was no way he was going to fuck him over with Bas here; she'd made it clear that, divorced or not, she was completely on his side. "Thanks Gwynny," he replied with sarcastic cheerfulness. "Now you and Mordy work things out nice and permanent like, or I'll see if Degei has some hungry snakes who might like a little run in the forest." He gave Gwyn a big, insincere smile, and Gwyn's ember eyes just burned at him, like they really wanted to disembowel him but would have to wait until his ex-wife wasn't around to pulp his ass.

Speaking of which, he caught Bas's eyes. "Think you can handle these clowns?"

She rolled those gorgeous, strange cat's eyes of her. "Please, that's why you asked me here, isn't it? They will play nice, or I'll change their testicles into cobras."

"Good on ya. Thanks love."

"You owe me," she warned.

"I know."

As Bob turned and walked off, leaving Bas with the quivering, cowering Gwyn and the stunned Mordred, the trees frozen in their half burned state, he knew Bas would probably kill him if he kept waiting for her to bail his ass out of these fights … but goddamn, didn't it make things easier? (Until he had to pay for it, of course - that was part of the deal.)

"You'll turn our testicles into what?" Mordred asked meekly.

If this wasn't a happy ending, Bob didn't know what was.

11

Angel was sure a vampire couldn't have a hangover - he'd never had a hangover ever (okay, there was that one time he drained that extremely drunk guy and felt really weird) - and yet he felt like he had one the day they did the "soul swap".

Bob gave them the head's up about recovering Xander's soul, and rather than rush things he thought they might want to take Doyle out on the town for one final time. Everyone thought this was a fabulous idea - especially Doyle - so that night they all took Doyle out drinking: him, Naomi, Marcus, Logan, Bren, Giles (! The surprising one), Kier, and Saddiq, who as dragged along by Bren. But Saddiq didn't stay with them long. He didn't drink, and he was incredibly bored, Attempts to get him involved him in the celebrations failed miserably. Saddiq had decided to hang around Los Angeles for now (much to the absent Scott's disappointment - he'd already taken off for New York - and the present Bren's happiness), but he was definitely calling it an early night. Logan went after Sid, and Angel noticed them talking briefly in the parking lot. He couldn't hear or see what they were saying to each other, but Logan gave him a book (he couldn't quite make out the cover, but it looked to have Arabic writing on it), and after looking at it a moment, Sid did something Angel had never seen him do before: he hugged Logan. It was clumsy and a bit stiff, but all the more touching for it. Logan took it well, although he had to be even more uncomfortable than Sid. So that was why they called Sid Logan's protégé, huh? Because surrogate son sounded a bit strange, and Logan and/or Sid would probably have objected to it.

Bren and Kier were acting distant towards each other - no, scratch that. Bren was acting distant, and Kier was clearly trying to worm his way back into his good graces. The first two bars they hit (Doyle wanted to hit a lot of places; he wanted to see some of the new bars that had sprung up in his absence), they kept their distance, although Kier kept trying to buy him drinks and be friendly to Bren. By the third bar - really a fairly trendy nightclub with a disturbing Goth theme - Doyle finally snapped. "Jesus, would you two kiss and make up already! You're really harshin' my buzz over here."

They didn't, but at least they started talking by the time they hit the forth bar. Giles decided to call it a night by then, although his ability to hold alcohol was impressive (to which his response was an acerbic, _"I'm British. This is nothing; this is sugar water compared to our beer.") _Naomi also seemed to be on the verge of drinking everyone under the table, which led her and Logan to riff on the superiority of Canadians. Bren reminded Logan he didn't count because his healing factor negated the alcohol, but then he pointed out they had a better health care system. Yes, it was a non-sequitur, but at that time of night and after so many drinks, it almost made sense. Marcus picked up a very pretty Latina at the bar and left with her, abandoning them with a gleefully sarcastic, "Adios, losers."

They called it a night when Doyle almost fell off his barstool, and Naomi wasn't much better. At that time, Bren and Kier had retreated to a corner and were making out, so he figured that relationship was repaired - at least until the alcohol wore off at any rate. Logan agreed to get Naomi and Bren and Kier home safe, and Angel took Doyle back to Xander's place - since they were the technically sober people, they got the jobs of looking out for the others. Angel did feel weird, though. To get in the spirit of things he'd had a couple of drinks, and now he felt a bit lightheaded - he'd forgotten that alcohol could affect vampires, just less than with a normal Human.

He knew why Logan had suggested he take Doyle home, as it gave them time to talk. Doyle said the afterlife - or at least _his_ afterlife - wasn't bad at all; he kind of missed it, although he liked being back on Earth with girls and beer. He was glad he was still hanging in there, "fighting the good fight" and all that.

He didn't want Angel's apology for what happened to him. He pointed out, sounding strangely sober, that it was his choice and he was good with it. Angel didn't "fail" him and he didn't blame him in the least. Even if Doyle was telling him what he wanted to hear, it was still a relief. He did miss him too, he just hadn't realized how much until now. It was going to be hard to say goodbye to him again, especially since he hadn't even been back that long.

Angel knew he hadn't gotten drunk the night before, and yet he still felt like he had a hangover. He felt a bit lousy, but he wondered if it was emotional as much as physical.

They did the soul swap at the Way Station if only for a sense of consistency. Kier showed up solo, saying Bren was way too hung over to show up (that was easy to believe), Giles was fine, as was Logan (of course) and the teetotaling Sid, but Naomi seemed a bit green around the gills (he wanted to ask her about Canadian superiority, but that seemed too cruel right now). Of course Bob showed up and made everyone better, but it was the principal of the thing. Marc called Logan to say he wasn't going to show, mainly because he was in Vegas and he wasn't completely sure how he got there, but he'd won two hundred dollars at the blackjack table, so it was all good.

Sid was kind of curious. Was he a member of them now or not? It wasn't official in any capacity, but Logan had already taken him aside and asked him to "keep an eye on him" when he wasn't around, which seemed to indicate that Logan thought Sid was part of their group, even if only in a freelance capacity. Angel knew he wouldn't mind having Sid around - what he lacked in social skills he made up for in fighting skills, which he proved by managing to hurt the succubus all by himself even though he had no idea what it was - but he wasn't sure Sid was all that certain what he wanted to do with himself. Still, it was nice to know that if things got really bad, he could always call Sid in for back up. He just had to keep in mind that for all his intense maturity, he was really a kid who'd never gotten a chance to _be_ a kid. Maybe they could do something to rectify that.

Transferring Xander's soul from the gem into him - and sending Doyle back - was actually easier than the first ritual, which somehow figured. Angel felt a pang of sadness as Giles got to the heart of the ritual and the soul gem cracked open like an egg, freeing Xander's soul and putting it back in his body on the floor of the empty bar. Well, at least this time Doyle didn't have to die.

Xander gasped and sat up slowly, groaning and rubbing his head. He looked around warily, and asked, "What the hell are we doing here? And why do I feel hung over?"

After so much drama, it was odd to feel like things were right back to normal.

* * *

It seemed rather strange that the senior members of the firm were angrier about the incident than the Senior Partners, but Kaya figured that was because the Partners had expected something like that.

They were gods after all - omniscience was usually part of the package. Also, Angel and company hadn't hurt any of the Partners, just their mortal lackeys, and since when did they matter? They were expendable and easily replaceable.

Gavin wasn't taking it well either. He paced restlessly in front of her desk, and if he hadn't been a ghost, he'd have worn a path in her new carpet. "They can't be allowed to get away with this," he was saying, his own frustration at feeling "violated" giving his voice a harsh, strained tone. She thought he was being a crybaby because he wasn't hurt at all - so what if he was trapped in a sacred circle until the arcane arts department could remove it? It wasn't painful, it just meant he couldn't move where he wanted to go. He should probably be trapped un a sacred circle all the time, just to keep from getting into everything like a feral cat. "We have to respond."

"No, "we" don't," she replied, glancing at the photos lined up neatly on her desk. This was the line up, Angel's new little group: Xander Harris, a normal Human with no strategic value whatsoever (threat level zero); Brendan Chambers (X-Men code name "Demon"), a half-Brachen who briefly functioned as a "vampire hunter" while Angel was gone. He probably thought he was more dangerous than he actually was (threat level three); Kier, their lovelorn little vampire whore who flew the coup. He wasn't a big loss at all, and if he still stuck to the bite club, he was extremely vulnerable (threat level five); Rupert Giles, ex-Watcher, who clearly knew more about spell slinging than he let on, raising his danger profile in spite of his age (threat level seven); Naomi Deschanel (code name "Electra"), a woman whose mutant power over electricity did make her exceedingly hard to approach and very dangerous (threat level eight); and Angel himself, of course, their pining lost soul of a vampire, the constant thorn in their side (threat level from seven to nine, depending).

Logan and Helga - both due to killer instincts and personal entanglements with Bob had threat levels off the charts; they were essentially thermonuclear - were the true worries. They couldn't make a move until they were certain they were clear. Saddiq, last name uncertain (code named "Saracen") , was a concern - his position with Angel's team was unclear, but his status as both an Eden child, one of the mutants engineered for military purposes, and a trained little suicide foot soldier for the regent of Rahjan put him at a threat level nine. Hurting him would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one; his true danger laid in the fact that he was a highly adept and adaptable fighter who had no reservations in sacrificing himself for the greater tactical advantage. If he was now a member of Angel's group, he was the one they had to neutralize first, before he got any bright ideas.

Kaya noted that even though he was young, he was very cute. What a wonderful bodyguard he'd make for her. She made a note of that, and hoped they'd figure out a way to do that, because killing him outright was such a waste of potential.

Gavin had stopped pacing and fixed her with an evil glare. "What the hell do you mean no we don't? You're not telling me the Partners are standing for this?"

She sat back in her chair and graced him with a cold smile. "It means they'd expect us to respond blindly, which we're not going to do. We have no intention of making this easy for Angel. He was right; this is over. The old battle." Her smile transformed into a wolfish leer. "But the new one is about to begin."

And for the first time in a very long while, Gavin smiled.

* * *

The End 


End file.
